


When the sun is on again

by Anonymous



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: "Constructive" Criticism is not welcome, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Auguste (Captive Prince) Lives, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Courtship, M/M, Overprotective Auguste, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Read the notes for an extensive list of trigger warnings, Slow Burn, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:28:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 275,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24113557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "I think," Damianos said softly, "that you have not been treated the way you deserve."For the first time in his life, Laurent did not know what to say back.
Relationships: Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Comments: 1672
Kudos: 1351
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Когда солнце засияет вновь](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27617990) by [azanatha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/azanatha/pseuds/azanatha)



> The title of this story was inspired by the first line of Anne Sexton's poem "Yellow". Victoire, who is only mentioned in passing, was written after Mariana's Victoria in Étude. All credit goes to her for the name of that OC. 
> 
> Here is a list of warnings to be aware of before reading this work (in alphabetical order and without spoilers):
> 
> \- Assassination attempts (both graphic and non-graphic)  
> \- Biased narrator (conflicting emotions when talking to/thinking of past traumatic experiences)  
> \- Discussions of past CSA using foul language  
> \- Foul language (insults and derogatory terms in dialogues, sometimes directed at children)  
> \- Graphic deaths of minor characters (canon-compliant)  
> \- Grief  
> \- Grooming  
> \- Non-graphic deaths of minor characters (OCs)  
> \- Non-graphic mentions of incest (canon-compliant)  
> \- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder with dissociative tendencies  
> \- References to CSA (mostly in the past but they get heavier in the last six chapters + the prologue contains references to present CSA)  
> \- Self-hatred  
> \- Self-harming tendencies  
> \- Touch-starvation  
> \- “Slut” shaming (mostly about pets)  
> \- Victim blaming
> 
> This story will be edited as soon as I’m done writing/posting it. There will be Trigger Warnings at the beginning of each chapter should you wish to avoid certain parts or if you simply want a heads-up. I will also add a word count for each chapter so you know how long it is before you start reading it. I ask you to please be patient, as I am trying to both write and edit this story in my free time, which at the moment is very limited. 
> 
> If you believe any of the trigger warnings/tags will upset you, I ask you to please consider not reading this story until it has been edited and individual warnings (both with and without spoilers) have been added to each chapter. 
> 
> If you have read this story and have any suggestions regarding which tags I should add, please contact me on tumblr (thickenmyblood) or leave a comment here with your tag/warning suggestion.

_and the planet will_  
_shudder with all those smiles and_  
_there will be no poison anywhere, no plague_  
_in the sky and there will be mother-broth_  
_for all the people, and we will_  
_never die, not one of us, we’ll go on_  
_won’t we?_

\- Anne Sexton, "Yellow"

**Prologue**

It started before the war did.

Three months before the first battle between the two kingdoms was fought, Auguste was already making himself scarce around the palace. He had obligations now that their father was dead and could hardly be expected to still have time for riding or sparring with Laurent. At least, that was how Uncle had put it. _Your brother is a King now, he has matters to attend to, none of which concern you._ And Laurent understood, he really did.

What he hadn't anticipated was how lonely he would be, how alienated. Before the barbarians started their scheming, Auguste had always made it his job to include Laurent in things—fake dueling, stone skipping, even allowing Laurent to attend certain meetings with him—and it had filled Laurent’s days with purpose and, most importantly, companionship. Laurent had not known how much time he used to spend with his brother until Auguste was taken away from him by the war, with all its planning and strategizing.

There were other children living in the palace now, all sons of noblemen who had answered Auguste’s call for help in defending the kingdom, but none of them liked Laurent. They found him disagreeable and too stuck up to engage in their games. In reality, Laurent did not know how to behave himself in a manner that would make him any friends because he had never been in that sort of situation before. He knew how to act around adults—a courteous smile here and there, a small bow to his father and other Kings, a lowering of the eyes—but children were a mystery. Children, in fact, were cruel in ways adults could not, or would not, allow themselves to be.

For the first time, without Auguste’s attentions and ostracized by those he should have befriended, Laurent was lonely.

And his uncle noticed.

*****

“He should not be drinking wine,” Auguste commented offhandedly during dinner.

It was the night before the first battle, which would be fought in the outskirts of Vere where some of the barbarians had set camp, but Auguste did not seem nervous. Laurent highly doubted anything could make his brother nervous.

Their uncle smiled. He lowered the bottle but did not put it back on the table. “It may soothe his nerves. He’s looking a bit… agitated.”

Auguste looked at Laurent for what felt like the first time in weeks. His blue eyes softened and he offered a knowing smile. “Would you like some wine, Laurent?”

It felt like the sky had parted and the sun was shining again. For a moment, Laurent had his brother’s unwavering attention. He found he could not get enough of the feeling.

“Yes,” he said, still looking at Auguste’s face, his eyes, the curve of his mouth.

Uncle laughed, pouring him a full cup. It should have raised questions—a pet should have been in charge of the pouring and the serving—but Uncle had always been rather particular when it came to his wine.

It tasted like nothing Laurent had ever tried before: both bitter and fruity, with a touch of something that reminded him of smoke.

He drank the whole cup slowly, but his head still felt heavy when he rose from his seat to head back to his rooms. For the second time that night, Auguste looked at him, the faintest crow's feet appearing by his eyes. He looked simultaneously worried and amused.

“Do you need—”

“I’ve got him,” Uncle said from Laurent’s right. “Do not worry.”

Auguste relaxed then, crow's feet disappearing as though they had never been there, and he gave Laurent one of his private smiles, the kind Auguste only seemed to have for him.

He pulled Laurent into his arms. “Do not fret,” he whispered into his ear. “Tomorrow all will be well.”

Laurent’s world tilted to the side as soon as he was away from his brother. Uncle put a hand on his shoulder, steadying him, and started to herd him down the hall. When Laurent realized they were going the wrong way—his rooms were on the other side of the palace—he also found it hard to open his mouth and get his tongue moving. It felt as though the muscle had fallen into a deep slumber and refused to be awoken.

“Not mine,” Laurent managed to say. It came off slurred, but his uncle seemed to understand the words.

His grip on Laurent’s shoulder tightened to the point of pain and relaxed again. “You must be terribly lonely, sleeping in those cold rooms by yourself,” Uncle said. Then, more quietly, he added, “Would you like to sleep with me tonight?”

Laurent felt sluggish, like his legs might give out from under him at any second, and he knew Uncle was right. He was terribly lonely and, in a way, Laurent owed him. Had it not been for his uncle pouring him wine during the meal, Auguste would not have looked over and spoken to Laurent. In a way, his uncle had, however briefly, gifted him his brother’s attention.

“Yes,” Laurent said. His tongue, a dead weight inside his mouth, would twist into no other word. “Yes.”

So it began.

*****

Dressed in his golden armor, Auguste glowed as bright as just forged iron where he was standing under the glimmering sun. His hair was matted with dirt and dark blood, but it still looked like gold to Laurent. He looked—no, _was_ —victorious, and for a moment Laurent could forget the guilt and concentrate on the relief he was experimenting. Relief, because his brother was alive.

He wanted to run towards Auguste and wrap his arms around his neck like he had done a thousand times before. He knew his brother would not refuse him, not even if everyone else was watching and it was inappropriate, yet Laurent could not find the strength to move from his spot next to his uncle.

“I told you he’d be fine,” his uncle said, petting Laurent’s mane. His fingers seemed to tug and scratch at all the right spots. He smiled when Laurent tilted his head into the touch. “You should congratulate him. A hug and a kiss for the battle won.”

Only then did Laurent’s legs obey him, taking him to where Auguste stood open-armed, waiting for him. He let himself be pulled into a tight embrace, his feet lifting off the ground as Auguste spun him around in delight.

“All is well,” Auguste said, laughing. He accepted Laurent’s kiss on his cheek and returned it with one of his own, on the forehead. “There’s barely a scratch on me. You needn’t have worried so much.”

Laurent, thinking of the two long scratches marring his own stomach, said nothing. He smiled and walked away when his brother released him to speak to a general. In a way, Auguste was right and all was well. There were still countless battles to be won against Akielos, but for now, his brother was the victor. Vere was on the cusp of spring and there was more wine to be tasted.

In a way, all was well.

*****

“Laurent,” Auguste said suddenly one morning during breakfast.

When Laurent looked up from the fruit platter, he realized there were no pets around. Uncle wasn’t there either, but Laurent already knew he wouldn’t be. _I’m afraid I’ll have to skip breakfast tomorrow, little one,_ he had said the night before. What for he had not said, and Laurent had known better than to ask.

A month had passed since the first battle and Vere was still winning. Laurent had heard the rumors of a possible truce treaty and an alliance, but it was still too early to know for sure. The King of Akielos seemed hesitant to send his sons into battle and it seemed like the war was beginning to put a financial strain on the kingdom no one had anticipated.

Laurent straightened in his seat. “Yes?”

“Would you like to go riding with me today?”

“No,” Laurent said easily. He picked up a grape from the platter and put it in his mouth. It tasted flat. “Thank you for the invitation, brother.”

Auguste frowned. “Laurent, what’s the matter with you? You seem…” He hesitated. “It’ll only be the two of us. It’s high time we spent some time with each other, don’t you think?”

“If you insist.”

“Well,” Auguste said patiently. He was sitting right in front of Laurent, blue eyes never leaving his face. A month ago, the attention would have made Laurent swoon. Now it only made him uncomfortable. “Do you have something else planned for today?”

Laurent bit the inside of his cheek. The taste of blood filled his mouth, sweet and full of flavor, unlike the grape he had just swallowed. “No,” he answered. “I do not.”

“Then you will go riding with me,” Auguste said. “I’ll send for you when I’m done answering my letters.”

Laurent nodded and went back to biting his cheek. He knew there was nothing he could say to make Auguste change his mind; once his brother was after something, he didn't stop until he got it.

He spent the rest of the day leading up to the riding expedition holed up in his rooms, trying to read one of the books his father had gifted him on his birthday but being unable to concentrate on the words written in front of him. He considered asking Paschal for some salves but did not know how to explain away his pains.

When he arrived at the stables, escorted by one of his brother’s guards, Auguste had already mounted his horse and was waiting for him. Laurent did not wince when he was helped onto his own, but some of the discomforts he was feeling must have shown on his face, for Auguste gave him an odd look as he watched him mount.

Neither said anything as they made their way down the path that led to the small forest surrounding the palace. Auguste kept his eyes straight ahead and his face impassive, and Laurent found himself staring helplessly at his brother, simultaneously hoping Auguste would not look at him and wishing he would.

Auguste held his reins tightly, slowing down his horse once they had made it into a small and protected clearing. “It’ll rain tomorrow,” he said, looking up at the sky.

Laurent could barely concentrate. He felt sore all over and, worse, inside, and riding was not helping. He gave his brother a curt nod and tried his best to focus on the sounds around them—the chirping of the birds, the far-away screeches of wild animals—instead of wallowing in self-pity. He couldn’t help but yelp when his mare moved too quickly, sending a sharp jolt of pain through him.

“What’s the matter?” Auguste asked him, dismounting. He walked up to Laurent. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Laurent said quietly. He pressed his heels into the soft stomach of the mare, trying to will her into stillness. “I’m fine.”

Auguste’s face looked troubled. He came closer and stroked the animal's head, right behind her ears. She sighed contentedly. “Laurent,” he said in a soft voice, searching for his eyes.

Laurent kept his eyes on the trees and remained silent.

“I can see you’re afraid,” Auguste went on in that same honey-like voice he had used to say Laurent’s name. He shifted, his hand moving from the mare’s ears to rest on Laurent’s leg. If he noticed the way Laurent’s breath hitched he did not mention it. “But you don’t have to worry. I promise you, I’ll come back from Marlas with a peace treaty. There will be no more bloodshed for you to lose sleep over.”

_It’s not bloodshed that keeps me awake at night_ , Laurent thought. He ran his tongue over the tender spot inside his cheek—the small patch of skin that never healed completely—and forced himself to look into his brother’s eyes.

“I hope so,” Laurent said at last. “I’ll… miss you.”

Auguste gave his knee a squeeze. “I’ll miss you too, but it will only be for a couple of weeks. Uncle will stay with you, so you won’t be alone.”

Laurent already knew that. His uncle had told him two nights ago that he would not be riding with Auguste to Marlas. He had sounded hopeful; they would not have to be as discreet with the King gone. Laurent had tried to mimic his enthusiasm, but his heart was heavy with worry. He could not bear the thought of Auguste never returning from Marlas. Or worse, returning only in body.

No matter how little Auguste seemed to care for him now, Laurent loved him. The thought of never riding with him again like they had done today filled him with dread and helplessness. He had already lost both his father and his mother and he did not know how much more he could lose without losing himself, too.

_He’s outgrown you, little one_ , Uncle had said. _Kings have no time for boys and games._

“Do you want to race back?” Auguste asked, mounting his horse again. “It’s been a while since I’ve beat you.”

_He lets you win. He does not think of you as an equal, but as a child. That is what one does with children: one indulges them._

“No,” Laurent bit out. “I want to stay here for a while.”

“Lau—”

“By myself,” he finished. He went back to staring at the treetops, unable to watch his brother’s face crumble. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

Auguste hesitated. When Laurent refused to acknowledge his presence, he let out a long sigh and started back to the palace.

Once alone, Laurent found that he did not like the clearing. It felt too small, too closed off. He could barely draw in a breath and, shamefully, he missed his brother’s voice and the tender weight of his hand on his knee.

Sore and lonely, he too started the ride back home.

*****

There was no blood caked in Auguste’s hair this time. He wore deep blue clothes, with laces that went all the way up to his elbows, and the crown that often sat on top of his head was nowhere to be seen. For a split-second, Laurent could almost pretend the war had never happened.

Unlike last time, Laurent did not move from where he was standing, surrounded by noblemen and servants and, most importantly, his uncle. He had no wish to embarrass himself any further by running towards his brother and hugging him—he was afraid if Auguste so much as stroked his hair he would cry. It had been more than four days since his uncle had even spoken to him, let alone touched him, and Laurent felt the want—rather, the _need_ —to be acknowledged far too fiercely for his own liking. The thought of being dead and not knowing it had crossed his mind a few times. For who could see a ghost? Who would want to?

But then Auguste’s eyes were on him, blue and sharp and assessing. Laurent felt them like a spear through the heart. Auguste cut his way through the crowd of people lining up to offer their congratulations on the new alliance and stood right in front of Laurent, a tall and looming figure that blocked out the sun.

He reached out and touched the side of Laurent’s head and, irrationally, Laurent almost felt compelled to flinch away. Auguste cradled his cheek in his hand and pushed back the locks of hair that were covering his right ear. When his fingers closed around the earring, Laurent thought for sure he would tear it off, splitting his lobe in two.

“Who gave this to you?” Auguste asked in a low voice. Apparently, he did not want anyone but Laurent to hear him.

In spite of his best efforts, Laurent tensed under his brother’s scrutinization. “It was a present.”

“You have not answered my question, Laurent. Who gave this to you?”

A minute passed and then another. Realizing he could not outright lie to his brother, Laurent settled for telling the truth. There was nothing wrong with being honest about this. An earring could hardly mean anything, and even Auguste wore jewelry sometimes.

“Uncle,” Laurent said, tilting his head away from his brother’s touch so that his hair could hide the present once more. “He said it matches my eyes.”

That was the beginning of the end.


	2. One

**One**

The book on his lap felt heavy and his feet were starting to tingle from not moving in so long, but Laurent did not shift. If anything, he pressed the book harder against his thighs, as if willing it to hurt him. He could feel Jord’s watchful eyes on him, following each and every movement, from the way he moved his fingers across the pages to the way he pushed the hair out of his face. But being watched was not a new thing for Laurent, so he did not say anything.

“Breakfast has been served,” Jord said from the doorway. “Your brother has asked me to escort you there this morning.”

It was what Jord always said, every single morning without fail. Laurent did not know the names of the guards that kept watch outside his rooms, but he did know Jord was his brother’s favorite. He escorted Laurent everywhere inside the palace, sometimes going as far as waiting inside his rooms while Laurent bathed. It made Laurent’s blood boil, and Jord’s nonchalance only made matters worse.

“Tell me,” Laurent said, snapping the book shut. “If my brother asked you to roll over and jump like a dog, would you do it?”

Jord pursed his lips as he did every single morning when Laurent insulted him. “Yes,” he answered. “For he is the King.”

Laurent nodded. He walked up to him and regarded him for a moment. “Well, what else can be expected of a dog like you but blind obedience?”

“Your Highness,” said Jord. A warning.

They walked in silence to the dining room. Two guards were left outside of Laurent’s chambers, their faces stoic and their backs straight. Laurent was not pleased to discover he did not recognize either of them.

Auguste was the only one in the room. It should not have surprised Laurent—after all, it had been this way ever since he came back from Marlas—but the sight of his brother, alone and waiting for him, still managed to feel like a special occasion. Not that he would ever say so out loud.

When he saw Laurent, Auguste waved his hand to dismiss Jord and put on a wide smile, probably trying to look beckoning. He must have known Laurent had been refusing to eat again and did not want to risk another argument that would send him storming out in one of his _moods_ , as the men had taken to calling them. Such had been the case yesterday morning: Laurent had thrown the cheese platter across the room and spent the rest of the day cooped up in his rooms with only Jord for company. If anything, Auguste was a quick learner.

“Good morning,” Auguste said. He drew back the chair closest to him on the table and motioned for Laurent to sit down. “Did you sleep well?”

“As well as a bird can sleep in a cage,” Laurent said.

He reached out for the grapes and popped one into his mouth. It was the closest thing to wine Laurent had been allowed to taste in weeks.

Auguste did not seem pleased by the comparison. “You’re not a prisoner, Laurent. You’re free to go wherever you please, read whatever you want… Your rooms can hardly be considered a cage.”

Laurent wanted to snap back at his brother. He wanted to hurt him like he knew he sometimes managed to hurt Jord, but he could not bring himself to say anything. Auguste’s brow seemed to always be furrowed nowadays, the edges of his mouth sagging downwards when he thought Laurent was not looking. Once, his brother’s face had been as bright as the sun—warm and kind as the afternoon glow in summer—but now his expression was always clouded. And Laurent knew it was because of him. Because of what he’d done.

“I’m not hungry anymore,” Laurent said instead. He pushed the grapes away, feeling nauseous. There was bread to his right, along with cold meats and cheeses. Just looking at them made his stomach clench painfully. “I’d like to be excused now.”

Auguste pressed his mouth into a thin line. “No,” he said. “You have to eat more, _then_ you can leave.”

“I just said I don’t want to.”

“You must be hungry, Laurent,” his brother said quietly. He sounded firm but also defeated. More than anything, he sounded tired. “You barely ate anything last night, and Jord said you sent your lunch back, untouched.”

“Jord is an imbecile.”

“Please,” Auguste said.

“You’re not Father. You can’t tell me what to do.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Laurent wanted to have them back. Auguste’s face gave nothing away, but Laurent knew his brother. He had finally struck a nerve.

Auguste pushed away from the table and stood up, his knuckles whiter than the tablecloth where they were holding onto the wood. “Jord,” he called and, of course, Jord came. _Such a good dog_ , Laurent thought bitterly. “Stay here with my brother until he’s finished eating breakfast. Do not let him leave this room until he’s eaten something besides grapes.”

“I’m not a child anymore,” Laurent said. He could feel his voice failing him, going higher and higher by the second. “You can’t treat me like this.”

Auguste brushed past him, his face a cold, pale mask. Even Jord seemed to be growing uncomfortable by the sight of him. “I may not be Father, but I am your King, Laurent. And you will do as I say.”

“Quit staring at me, you hound,” Laurent spat out the moment Auguste had left the room.

Jord did not avert his eyes. He took a seat in front of Laurent and crossed his arms over his chest. “Eat,” he said simply.

“I do not take orders from you.”

Shrugging, Jord leaned back into the chair. “Then don’t eat. We’ll sit here until it’s time for lunch.”

“Don’t you have any other matters to attend to?” Laurent asked. “Surely you can’t enjoy this.”

“One rarely enjoys working, Your Highness.”

“You call this working? You’re simply… lounging.”

Jord smiled a little. “No offense, but how would you know the difference?”

It was no way to speak to the Prince of Vere. They both knew it, yet neither commented on it. Jord did not apologize and Laurent did not reprimand him. For once, it felt as though he was being treated as a human being. Perhaps this was what his interactions with other children had always lacked—the easy banter, the unapologetic jabs. Granted, Jord was not a child, but he spoke with the recklessness of one sometimes.

Reaching for the bread, Laurent said, “So, Jord. Are you a married man?”

*****

Now that spring was almost over and the peace treaty had been signed, most of the noblemen and their families had already left the palace. Most of the children Laurent had grown to despise were already gone and only the memory of their laughter and games remained. All except for one.

Aimeric was not the son of a nobleman from afar, drafted in by Auguste to defend the kingdom. His father was Guion, Ambassador to Akielos, and his mother was called Loyse, although Laurent had never seen her. She kept mostly to herself and rarely left her rooms, which she did not share with her husband. There were other sons, but at twelve Aimeric was the youngest and, like Laurent, the most easily ignored.

He must have always lived near the palace, although Laurent could not remember seeing him before the war started. It felt as though Guion had only ever had three sons and, the moment the heralds announced Akielons wanted blood, Aimeric had magically appeared out of thin air.

And out of all the children that had usurped his gardens and his playing grounds, it was him Laurent hated the most.

“Your Highness,” Aimeric would say, sneering, every time they met in the halls.

He was one year younger than Laurent, but his body was better built. His calves showed the faintest trace of muscle, his jaw was more defined. He was already sharp where Laurent was still soft.

“He’s just a child,” Jord said to him after Laurent had been complaining about the dirty looks Aimeric would shoot him across the gardens. “Such are the ways of boys.”

“I am a boy,” Laurent replied. “Yet I do not behave like him.”

Here Jord hesitated. “But you’re the Prince. It is different.”

“How so?”

“He must be jealous of you,” Jord said, although it seemed to Laurent that he did not believe his own words. It was an effort for him to speak. _He’s indulging me_ , Laurent thought. “Perhaps you should try to befriend him. There are games not even the Prince can play on his own.”

Laurent considered this. He called for Aimeric the next morning after breakfast and regarded him with the silent curiosity one would show a servant. Aimeric did not seem to like this but said nothing. He, unlike Jord, could not get away with directly disrespecting Laurent.

“I want to play a game with you,” Laurent finally said. From his right, Jord snorted. “Would you like to?”

Aimeric’s green eyes shone brightly as if someone had lit a torch behind them. “Yes, Your Highness. I would like to, very much.”

Laurent, who could not remember the last time he had spoken to a boy his age, did not think anything of his enthusiasm. “Well, I will hide and you will try to find me. You only have until Jord reaches fifty.”

Jord snorted again but began counting out loud. Aimeric stood rooted to the spot, his eyes closed and a smile spreading across his face like an infection.

Laurent did not care about winning, but he thought Aimeric might be offended if he chose a hiding spot far too obvious, so he slipped out of the room and walked to the kitchens. There were guards there, so Jord could not accuse him of wandering on his own unsupervised.

Crouching under a large table, Laurent waited. The cooks had left the kitchen as soon as they saw him walk in, and now Laurent was the only one in the damp room. It smelled of sweetmeat and grains, and soon Laurent found he was hungry. His legs started to ache from the position he was in and so did his back.

Finally, when it seemed like the torture of waiting would never end, Aimeric came through the door. He moved like a lynx, his long limbs graceful and strong in ways Laurent had not yet discovered his own could be. Jord was nowhere to be seen.

Aimeric spotted him easily but, instead of fleeing like the rules of the game demanded, he crawled under the table with Laurent. His breathing was soft, controlled, a stark contrast to the swift motion of his hand as it gripped a fistful of Laurent’s hair and yanked.

Laurent made no sound. He was not scared—he knew, in a way, that Aimeric would not dare hurt him—and he did not want to give the other boy the satisfaction of hearing him yelp. Laurent’s scalp prickled uncomfortably, but he swallowed his protests down.

The touch of Aimeric’s lips was a ghost against Laurent’s ear. “He never loved you,” he whispered. For a second, Laurent thought he was talking about Auguste. “And you spread yourself for him like a _pet_.”

And just as quickly as he had grabbed Laurent, he let go and crawled away. Laurent watched him go and thought of nothing, said nothing. That was how Jord found him some minutes later, stiffly crouching under the table with a blank look on his face.

“He’s just a boy,” Jord said and it sounded like he was apologizing for something. “He doesn’t know any better. It was a mistake on my part, suggesting you—”

“I want to lie down,” Laurent said, ignoring everything Jord had just told him. “Escort me back to my rooms.”

They met no one on their way back. Aimeric was nowhere to be seen and there were no servants roaming the empty halls. Perhaps they too had learned it was best to avoid Laurent.

“What did he say to you?” Jord asked him. He stood, wringing his hands, on the doorway of Laurent’s rooms.

“He was teaching me,” Laurent said, “the ways of boys.”

*

It was a spear that did it, later that week.

Laurent was sitting near the training arena, pretending to read a book about Veretian heritage while Jord lurked somewhere behind him. He could have chosen any other place to read, but Laurent found that he despised silence almost as much as he had despised noise, before. The palace library was deadly quiet and Laurent did not like to be alone there, not even with Jord guarding the door.

Auguste was sparring. The other man seemed to be growing tired, but Auguste either did not care or failed to notice. Knowing him, it was probably the latter. Ever since Marlas, Auguste had been training at least twice a day every day, something that made Laurent feel uneasy. If there was peace now among their people, as well as with the Akielons, what was his brother preparing for?

“Old man,” Auguste said, laughing. It had been some time since Laurent had heard that sound and it startled him out of his reading. “Is that all you have?”

The man scowled and dug his heels into the soil, preparing to launch forward again. And then, in the last second, there was a flash of movement, and Auguste fell to his knees with a loud thud.

The spear looked bizarre coming out Auguste’s chest, a bloodied stick. Laurent saw the blood but his brain could not register what had happened, what was still happening. Suddenly, Jord was yanking at him, pulling him away from the arena, away from his brother.

The last thing Laurent saw before Jord managed to pull him away was Paschal running towards Auguste, who laid on the ground bleeding with the spear still sticking out of him in a grotesque way.

There was a sick smell all around him. Laurent looked up from Jord’s chest to find the front of his clothes was covered in vomit. He frowned, unsure of how he had made it all the way back to one of the palace halls, and considered asking Jord to be mindful of where he threw up next time.

And then he realized it was his own vomit that covered both of them. When a new wave of nausea hit him, Laurent did not even attempt to hold his ground, letting it sweep him under as he sicked up again all over Jord’s feet.

“Your Highness,” Jord said in a tight voice. Was it fear or disgust that lingered in his voice? Probably both, Laurent decided. “You need to go back to your rooms. Come.”

“My brother,” Laurent croaked out. The inside of his mouth tasted—and probably smelled—foul. He could not understand what was happening. His book was gone but he could not recall dropping it. “My brother.”

“Your Highness,” was all Jord said. He hesitated and then, drawing in a deep breath, he put his hands on Laurent’s waist and hoisted him up, throwing him over his shoulder. “I’m sorry, but it’ll be faster this way.”

Laurent had not been touched by anyone but Auguste in a while and Jord’s hands on his body felt like hot irons despite the various layers of clothing he was wearing, scorching the skin underneath. He could do little more than scratch at Jord’s back with blunt fingernails. His legs, as usual, did not seem to want to cooperate, not even to kick Jord’s chest.

“My brother,” Laurent said again.

Jord did not answer him. He let go of him only when they were inside Laurent’s rooms, the door safely locked behind them. The smell of vomit was stronger here but Laurent barely had time to notice before he was throwing up again. Little but bile came up this time, burning Laurent’s throat and mouth, but his stomach refused to stop clenching and unclenching, trying to expel all the food inside him as if it were poison.

“Laurent,” Jord said softly, almost as softly as Auguste always said his name. “You need to get out of those clothes.”

Laurent felt his face drain of all color and warmth.

“I won’t look,” Jord said. “I’m not touching you, see? Can you do the laces on your own?”

Laurent could not. His fingers trembled and so did his hands. His knees buckled once, twice, and Jord moved closer as if to catch him but did not put his hands on him. He looked ridiculous: his hair untamed and his feet covered in sick, clothes disheveled and dirty. Laurent would have laughed if only he’d had the strength.

At some point, Jord must have grown tired of waiting for Laurent’s brain to thaw, and he took it upon himself to deal with the laces and the buttons and all the belts. Once the shirt and the vest were out of the way, Jord pressed a dripping rag to Laurent’s hand.

“Wash yourself,” he told Laurent, backing away towards the door. “Don’t open this door for anyone but me. Did you understand?”

Laurent looked down at the rag and then back at Jord. “Where are you—”

“I need to speak to Paschal.”

 _What for_ , Laurent almost asked. But he already knew the answer to that question. Jord wanted to find out whether Auguste was dead or alive. The images hit Laurent like a kick to the chest—the spear, the blood-soaked soil—and he could almost hear Auguste’s knees hitting the ground, again and again.

“Tell me you understand,” Jord all but barked at him. It occurred then to Laurent that no one had ever spoken to him like that.

“What?”

“Do not open this door until I come back. Not for anyone. Is that understood?”

Unable to speak, Laurent simply nodded. He stood there, half-naked, watching Jord leave and lock the door from the outside. Laurent had not known he had a key. He’d thought only Auguste did.

 _Auguste_.

Laurent sank to the floor. It was cold and reeked of his own vomit, but he did not care. Cleaning himself seemed like a task for which he possessed neither the skill nor the strength, but he did it anyway. When he could not stand the stench any longer, he grabbed the wooden box full of oils from under his bed and rubbed some over his hands and neck. The smell of lavender filled the air instantly.

He sat cross-legged on the cold marble floor and stared at nothing until Jord came back. Laurent could hear him speaking but could not, for the life of him, understand the words coming out of Jord’s mouth. It felt as though time, once intangible, had somehow thickened. Laurent could not focus his eyes again on anything particular. The furniture around him was blurry and distorted. A nightmare, he thought, could never be this terrible.

What was the last thing he had said to his brother? They had argued again today during breakfast, this time over the sickly pale color of Laurent’s skin, a direct consequence of refusing to spend any time in the sun. What exactly had he told Auguste? Laurent struggled to remember but the memory would not come back to him, no matter how desperately he called for it. They had not embraced each other today. And now—

“—ent? Are you listening to me?”

Jord was shaking him by the shoulders, his face merely a few inches away from Laurent’s, and his hair looked even wilder than before. Again his mouth moved, lips curling around the words, but Laurent could no longer hear him.

The blur in front of him shifted, became different, and Laurent felt himself being pulled and yanked. Something warm covered his back and shoulders and suddenly he was moving. Looking down, he realized he was walking—his legs moved on their own accord without any effort on his part—and Jord was holding him up by the elbow as they crossed the palace. The sun was still up in the sky, blindingly bright, and it made the gardens look the most beautiful Laurent had ever seen them. That made his anger return—why did the world have to go on, birds singing and flowers blooming, when Auguste was dead?

 _You have beaten me again,_ Auguste’s voice said inside his head. It was a memory from before the war, when Auguste still played with him—indulged him, Laurent corrected himself—and he’d pretend Laurent was faster, letting him win. _Read to me, you’re so much smarter than I am,_ Auguste would say to trick him into reading boring letters out loud. And now there would be no more pretending, no more tricks or fake banter. Nothing.

Laurent blinked and Paschal’s face was in front of him. He was no longer walking.

“He kept throwing up,” Jord said from somewhere.

“Yes,” answered Paschal. “I can smell it on you.”

They were in the infirmary, the small room on the east side of the palace where Paschal had once bandaged Laurent’s arm after he’d fallen while chasing Auguste, but Laurent could not understand why Jord had brought him here. He was not hurt. He had not thrown up again.

“Can you blink for me, Your Highness?”

Laurent blinked.

“He only needs to warm up,” Paschal said, already pulling back. “A finger or two of absinthe will do the trick.”

“No,” a rough voice came from behind Paschal. “No—alcohol.”

Laurent would have known that voice anywhere. Hope bloomed in his chest, untamable, and before he knew he was doing it, Laurent had already pushed past Paschal and stumbled to where the voice had come from.

There was a cot and on it was Auguste. His shirt was gone, replaced by thick cream-colored bandages. His hair was wet and sticking to his forehead as though he had a high fever. It had been months since Laurent had seen his brother so unguarded. When Auguste noticed him, he smiled. Or at least he tried to.

“All—right?” Auguste slurred.

Something splashed Laurent’s hands. He did not understand how it could be raining when minutes ago he had been watching the sun-filled sky, not a cloud in sight, and then he realized they were not raindrops but his own tears. Laurent pressed his fingertips against his cheeks and found them wet and cold. If he concentrated hard enough, he could taste the salt on his lips.

“Auguste,” Laurent said. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against his brother’s hand on the bed. He could smell the blood, the sweat, and the ointments Paschal had most likely rubbed into Auguste’s wound.

Auguste must have felt the wetness of Laurent’s tears against his skin, for he removed his hand and placed it on top of Laurent’s head instead. “Don’t cry,” he murmured, carding clumsy fingers through his brother’s hair. “I’m—fine.”

“The spear missed the organs,” Paschal said. “It should only leave a small scar.”

Jord cleared his throat after a moment. “I should escort Prince Laurent back to his rooms,” he said.

Laurent raised his head, ready to snap that he was not going back there when Auguste spoke.

“Leave him,” he said and his voice was steady. It was an order.

Neither Paschal nor Jord said anything else. Laurent did not look in their direction and only realized they had gone when he heard the door closing behind them.

Weak-limbed and nauseous, Laurent knelt beside the cot where his brother lay and pressed his face against the soft sheets pooling around Auguste’s hips. His throat felt raw and it hurt to swallow, but Laurent welcomed the pain. He felt grateful in a way he had not experienced before in his life.

The same relief he’d felt when Auguste came back from Marlas filled him now like a warm drink after a night spent out in the cold. It spread all through him, dulling every other ache and sorrow until Laurent thought he would burst with the intensity of it.

“Come here,” Auguste said into the silence that had fallen over them. His voice, minutes ago so firm and steady, was now as soft as a whisper. “Come.”

The cot was barely big enough to fit Auguste, but Laurent crawled in next to his brother, making sure no part of him was touching Auguste’s wound. Laurent pressed his face into Auguste’s shoulder, which was the only part of him unbandaged, and held his breath until all he could hear was the wild beating of his own heart in his ears.

“Who?” Laurent asked after a while.

Auguste stirred and his mouth moved against Laurent’s forehead. “Orlant,” he said. “Bought. He was… bought.”

“You were expecting it,” Laurent said. His mind was focused now. It was like a veil had been lifted and he could see all sorts of connections he had not been able to see before. “Jord—he already knew what to do.”

Auguste winced as he shifted, draping his good arm over Laurent’s back. “Sleep,” was all he said.

Laurent closed his eyes. He could not imagine falling asleep ever again, at least not soundly, and he contented himself with listening to Auguste’s deep and slow breathing instead. He was warm in that way of his that reminded Laurent of summer. He was alive.

Auguste would see the sun again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! I just wanted to thank you all so much for reading this story and taking the time to leave such amazing comments on the prologue.  
> I know things seem to be moving slow, but I am a slow-burn sort of gal, so please bear with me. There was a little time skip here, but all will be explained in the next couple of chapters. I also forgot to add the Nicaise lives tag, but I will do so after posting this chapter.  
> Thank you so much for reading!


	3. Two

**Two**

“The King’s Guard is more than capable of keeping your brother safe,” Jord said for what felt like the billionth time that day. His hair laid flat on his head where a couple of days ago Laurent had seen it standing on end, tousled and wild as a lion’s mane. On his face was the faintest of stubbles. Soon he would be sporting a full beard. “There’s no reason for you to stay here.”

Laurent stared back at him, straight-backed and wary. “Is that an order?”

“I thought you did not take orders from me, Your Highness.”

“I do not,” Laurent said. “But I would hate to be tossed over your shoulder and carried away, again.”

At least Jord had the decency to look ashamed. “I was only doing what your brother commanded me to.”

“Did he explicitly tell you to carry me as a maiden on her wedding night?”

“He ordered me to do whatever it took to keep you safe,” Jord said in that calm and unwavering voice of his. “Had we stayed at the arena, Orlant might have tried to attack you, too.”

Once, Laurent would have told Jord he was wrong. _Uncle loves me, he’d never hurt me_ , he’d have said. What stopped him now was not the ever-growing doubt over Uncle’s affections, but the fact that he had heard his uncle speak fondly of Auguste before, had heard him praise him as the best king Vere had ever known—greater even than Aleron—and yet none of that had stopped him from buying a swordsman of the guard to slaughter Auguste.

With Auguste gone, Uncle would rule until Laurent was of age. With Auguste gone, there would be no need for discretions of any kind, something Laurent had learned over the course of those long weeks he’d spent alone with his uncle while Auguste negotiated with King Theomedes in Marlas.

Uncle could be cruel, this Laurent knew, but he would not have had his youngest nephew gutted like a pig just because. If Uncle wanted him dead, which Laurent had trouble believing to be true, then it was not out of aspiration for the throne. It was because he did not want Laurent to speak of what he knew, of what he’d done. In a sick way, it felt as though his uncle was still protecting him, trying to spare him the shame of living a life where the court and even the pets knew of his secret.

Aimeric knew, which could only mean someone had told him. Laurent had foolishly thought that the only people who’d known were Auguste, Jord, and himself. Yet there must have been someone else, for he could imagine neither his brother nor Jord putting their trust in Aimeric’s young hands. Neither of them would have trusted a child with a secret so big.

That only left his uncle. But why would he tell Aimeric? What was there to be gained?

“Has he fled, too?” Laurent asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Orlant, I mean.”

“He’s dead. Some of the men said he swallowed poison when he realized he could not escape.”

 _I hope he suffered_ , Laurent thought fervently. Sitting beside his brother’s bed, he had prayed for nothing more. If it meant his soul was black and tarred, then he did not care one bit. Had he known witchcraft he would have found a way to spell Orlant’s soul back into his body, only to have him flogged and killed again.

“I will not leave,” Laurent said, “and you can’t make me. So go stand guard at the door and leave me alone with my brother now.”

Jord rolled his eyes but disguised the gesture by looking up at the ceiling. “Your Highness, there are four guards on the other side of that door already. Your brother needs his rest, even Paschal said so, and you would be more comfortable sleeping in your—”

“Thank you for your counsel,” Laurent cut him off. “Now, if you’ll excuse yourself, I have far more interesting things to do than stand here and argue with you.”

“I’ll be outside if you need me,” Jord said. He was already at the door when he turned and added, “Your Highness.”

“Stop calling me that,” Laurent hissed, but Jord was already gone. The last glimpse of him Laurent caught was his shoulders shaking with laughter.

Auguste’s rooms were the biggest ones, double in size to Laurent’s, and the view was of the most beautiful part of the gardens. The smell of roses and daffodils was strongest in the mornings, but even now Laurent could feel it, filling up the room and covering up the lingering odor of blood. Paschal had changed the bandages barely an hour ago and all Laurent could taste was iron when he breathed in through his mouth.

Laurent sat on the edge of the enormous bed and stared at his brother’s face. Some color had returned to his cheeks and his lips were not as chapped, yet it was undeniable that Auguste had seen better days. Unreasonably, Laurent wanted Auguste to stir awake, to open his eyes, only to make sure he was still there. Even though Auguste’s chest rose and sank with every breath he took, Laurent could not relax. The smell of blood evoked images in his mind he could not shake off.

“Do not fret,” Auguste said, startling Laurent so badly he almost leaped from the bed. His eyes remained closed for another moment, and when he opened them they were the bluest Laurent had ever seen them. “I can hear you worrying.”

Laurent wanted to reach out and hold his hand but stopped himself at the last second. “Paschal said it will take weeks for you to heal completely,” he said. He did not know what to with his hands, where to put them, and so he turned them into fists on his lap. “Orlant is dead.”

“So I’ve heard,” Auguste replied. Even now he was trying to smile. “One less traitorous viper to worry about. But let’s not think of any of that now. Tell me, how are you?”

“I am fine. It was not me who almost bled to death.”

Auguste’s smile widened. “Well,” he said slowly and Laurent knew he was about to tell a joke before he had even said it. “You have always been more liked than me. This was only a matter of time.”

Laurent did not laugh. He could not even bring himself to return his brother’s lopsided smile. Auguste’s hand found one of his and gave it a squeeze as if to say _it was merely a joke_. Auguste, with his soft voice and noble heart. Auguste, who had never known true scorn or hatred, who trusted easily and forgave too fast. It might as well have been Laurent holding the spear; if not for him, none of this would have happened.

“What happens when you find him?”

Auguste did not need to ask who. His smile went away and the wrinkles on his forehead appeared once more, as though the mere mention of their uncle had summoned them. “There will be a trial.”

“And then?” Laurent asked.

“Then he will be put to death.”

Auguste had said it so confidently he must have believed in his heart there could be no other possible outcome. Laurent, on the other hand, could not even decide if the icy hand he felt closing around his heart belonged to fear or regret.

“He is our uncle. He’s the only family we have left.”

Auguste’s face hardened. “And you are my brother. Let him rot, for all I care. _You_ are my family, Laurent.”

 _But you are the King of Vere now_ , Laurent thought, _you’ve outgrown me._

Some of his grief must have shown on his face because Auguste was holding his hand very tightly, almost to the point of pain. “I wish it had been me,” he said roughly. “Laurent, if I could take it from you—if I could take it _for_ you, I would. Maybe one day you’ll be able to forgive me.”

“Forgive you? What is there to forgive?”

Auguste’s throat worked as he swallowed. His fingers were digging into Laurent’s palm but he did not seem to notice, not even when Laurent wriggled his hand for release. “It was my fault. I should have taken better care of you. Still, you must know—” There was an edge to his voice Laurent had never heard before. “I had no idea. You must believe me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“All those times I left you alone with him,” Auguste said and his skin now had a new tinge to it, a sickly grey color, as though he might be sick at any moment. “I did not know what he was doing to you. I can’t stand the thought of you believing I gave you to him, that—that I gave my consent.”

Laurent managed to free his hand from Auguste’s grip. He cradled it to his chest, the skin hot and clammy where Auguste’s fingers had touched him, and tried very hard to focus. The room was very quiet, holding its breath in anticipation for what’s to come, and Laurent felt the silence weighing down on him more and more as the seconds went by.

Of course Auguste had not known. Wasn’t that the whole point? To spare the King the burden of having to deal with his little brother. And still, Laurent found that he did not completely agree with what Auguste was implying. _I should have taken better care of you_ sounded like the biggest kind of indulgence. One did not take care of others unless they were unable to care for themselves.

And to care for Laurent, not out of love but out of pure obligation... wasn’t that the biggest proof to Uncle’s words?

Auguste’s apology made no sense to Laurent. Did he think Laurent had not gone willingly—if not at first, then eventually—into Uncle’s chambers night after night? Did he think, like Aimeric, that Uncle had never loved Laurent?

Laurent stiffened. Another thought crept in on him: did Auguste think that way because he himself did not love Laurent at all anymore? Was the idea of someone loving him so ridiculous that it could not be entertained, not even for a second?

“You need to rest,” Laurent said, walking over to the floral armchair by the window. He was trying to put as much distance between them as he could manage without leaving the room. Despite everything, he did not want his brother to be alone. “Now’s not the time to speak of such matters.”

But Auguste did not relent. He heaved himself up so he was sitting on the bed instead of lying on it, and stared at Laurent with a look of determination. If the movement pained him, he gave no sign of it. It was obvious he wanted to move closer to Laurent, but he was aware of his current limitations. He could not get out of bed without re-opening the wound Paschal had spent so long carefully stitching.

“Laurent,” he said. “I did not know.”

“I know you didn’t,” Laurent snapped at him and hated himself for it. The last thing Auguste needed was for his brother to talk back to him while he was recovering from an injury that had nearly cost him his life. “Go back to sleep.”

“No. Not until you tell me why you’re acting like this.”

“Acting like what? I’m only trying to get you to sleep so you can recover faster. Paschal said—”

Auguste huffed. “I do not care about any of that right now. Now stop being a child and tell me what’s wrong. How am I supposed to know what’s going on inside that thick head of yours if you don’t explain it to me?”

Laurent’s stomach flipped over. “Make up your mind, brother. I’m either a child or I’m not. If you think I’m being foolish then say so, but don’t ask me to stop being a child when that’s all you’ve ever seen me as.”

“God, Laurent,” Auguste said, rubbing at his temples. “You can be so infuriating at times. I only meant…” He hesitated. When he looked at Laurent again, his face had that ashen tone to it. He kept his hand outstretched on the bed as if trying to reach Laurent. Defeatedly, he continued, “I suppose I deserve this. If I had not been so eager to find someone you could trust when I was not around, none of this would have happened.”

“Kings have no time for boys and games,” Laurent said. “Now let us stop speaking of this. It’s clearly making you ill.”

Something Laurent could not read flickered in his gaze. “Is that what he told you? That I did not have time for you anymore?”

He had, but Laurent was not about to say so out loud. “He did not need to tell me anything. It’s nothing but the truth anyways. How much longer would you have indulged me, even without the war? A year at most, had I let you. And then? What would have happened then?”

“Indulged you?” Auguste asked. He sounded thunderous. If he continued to raise his voice, soon one of the guards would come inside to see what all the fuss was about. “Has he really sunk his claws so deep in you that you cannot see what is right in front of you?”

Laurent, who had often been praised for his cool temper as a younger child, was now losing the battle with his own anger. “Lie to me all you want, Auguste. At the end of the day, I know the truth. When this is over you’ll go back to your responsibilities—as you should—and I’ll go back to mine.”

By that, Laurent meant reading and studying furiously. If books were good for something, it was escapism. Jord was wrong; he did not need other boys to play with or any of that nonsense. As long as he had his books, Laurent could go on living just fine. He had seen the ways of boys and had not liked them. _Let boys be boys and men be men_ , Laurent thought, _I shall be neither._

A strangled noise pulled Laurent away from his thoughts. When he looked over at Auguste, he realized the sound had come from him. His mouth was pressed into a stubborn line and his jaw was set, but what shocked Laurent the most were the fat tears that slid down his brother’s cheeks and fell all over his bandages, darkening the cloth where they landed.

He had never seen Auguste cry before.

“Are you in pain?” Laurent asked, jumping from his seat as he spoke. He could not move fast enough or speak the words he wanted in a way that gave them meaning. “Paschal. I’ll go and find… The stitches. Is it the stit—”

“Do you know how much I love you?” Auguste cut off his manic babbling. The tears were still streaming down his face, making his blue eyes glimmer. “Do you have any idea? Punish me all you want, I know I deserve it, but do not say that again. Of course I’ve indulged you, Laurent. What is love if not indulgence?”

“I’m not… I’m sorry,” Laurent stammered. He tried to kneel by the bed as he had done in the infirmary, but Auguste would not allow it. He grabbed hold of Laurents’s hands and pulled up and towards him on the bed. Even injured he was stronger than Laurent. “I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

Auguste did not seem to care about the stitches. He hugged Laurent so tightly there was not an inch of space between them and refused to let go, even when Laurent tried to squirm away to avoid elbowing him in the ribs.

“I’ll always have time for you,” he said into Laurent’s hair. “Always. Whatever he said to you is not the truth.”

Laurent opened his mouth to speak, but then Auguste squeezed him so hard all air left his lungs.

“I’ll send you away if it’s me you can not stand,” he went on. “We have allies in Patras who’d take you as a ward if I asked them to.” Auguste pulled away to look into Laurent’s face. “Is that what you want? I won’t be offended if it is.”

The edges of Laurent’s mouth lifted hesitantly. When he answered, the words were a wobbly mess. “For someone who claims to love me, you sure seem eager to send me away.”

“You fool,” Auguste said, now almost smiling too. He held Laurent closer. “I’ve missed you so terribly.”

“I’ve been here all along.”

Auguste shook his head. “No, you have not.” After a pause, he added, “But now you are.”

*

Pouring himself another cup of water, Laurent elbowed Jord hard on the side. On purpose.

“Will you stop that?” Jord hissed but made sure to keep his face completely blank.

“Then stop calling me Your Highness.”

The feast had been Guion’s idea. _To celebrate the King’s recovery_ , he’d said. Everywhere Laurent looked there was food and drinks and pets. Someone was playing the lyre, a barely heard melody over the sound of voices and cutlery.

Auguste was deep in conversation with a man Laurent had never seen before. There seemed to be a lot of new faces around nowadays and soon, Laurent knew, there would be even more. King Theomedes would be here in three months’ time, bringing with him not only his family but most of his court. As Auguste often said, the alliance between Akielos and Vere was the only good thing to come out of the war.

Soon, the gardens would fill with strangers again, and all Laurent could hope for was that the Akielons did not bring as many children as his brother’s noblemen had brought with them during the war.

“I am not Your Highness,” Jord said to his left. “You are. My mother had me named Jord, after my father.”

Laurent kicked him under the table. Hard. “Keep that up and I’ll—”

“You’ll do what, exactly? Sick up all over my feet again?”

“Again with the puke,” Laurent said, sighing. He went to kick Jord again and instead managed to hit a foreign councilor. The man yelped in surprise and knocked over his cup of wine. “Look what you’ve made me do, Jord.”

“Your Highness,” Jord replied. He did not say anything else, too busy watching the councilor splutter and turn red.

A pet—the councilor’s choice for the night, most likely—was trying to put him back to ease by discreetly letting his hand trail over the man’s thighs under the table. It was not an unusual sight, for pets were allowed to sit by their masters during feats, but Laurent felt himself sway slightly on his seat as he watched them.

“Laurent?” Auguste called from his right as soon as he felt Laurent leaning against him. He kept his voice low, not wanting to draw attention to himself or to Laurent. Still, most of the people sitting on the table turned to look at them. “This is your cup, right? The one filled with water.”

“Yes,” Laurent said. He found he could speak and think clearer if he kept his eyes away from the pet and the councilor. “It’s the heat,” he said when he realized Auguste was worried he had been drinking wine. Not wanting to explain the real reason behind his dizziness, Laurent forced himself to push through with his lie. “I think I need some fresh air.”

“Jord,” Auguste said immediately. “Take Lazar with you and escort my brother to the gardens.”

Jord was already standing by Laurent’s chair.

Laurent paused. “But Lazar is—”

“—still in training,” Auguste finished for him. “But he’s faster than any other man I know.”

Jord to defend him and Lazar to alert his brother, should anything go wrong. Since the spear incident—as Auguste liked to call it—Laurent was not allowed to go anywhere without at least two guards. For someone who’d spent the whole war being ignored by literally everyone around him, the now constant attention made Laurent feel trapped sometimes.

 _Better trapped than dead_ , Jord would say when Laurent complained.

Once in the gardens, Laurent tried to control his breathing. Lazar and Jord let him be, keeping an eye on him but not going after him when he took a few steps towards the roses.

The moon was full and seemed to follow him everywhere he walked. It gave the flowers an ethereal glow that made it hard to look away from them. Even the ones Laurent usually found boring—the orchids, for example, with their violet petals—looked beautiful.

A few steps behind him, Lazar and Jord were speaking in hushed whispers, trying to keep their conversation from reaching Laurent’s ears. Yet Laurent heard them anyways.

“Lys?” Lazar said. He did not sound impressed by whatever Jord had told him. “I heard rumors that he was hiding in the forest up north, waiting for all of this to blow over.”

Even though Laurent could not see his face, he knew Jord was frowning. “That will not happen any time soon. He knows that. The forest is no place for a man like him.”

“Because he’s highborn?” Lazar asked.

“Partly because he’s highborn,” Jord answered, “and partly because there are no children there. A man is a man, Lazar.”

“But even if he had gone south, all the way to Lys, surely not even he would be bold enough to get himself a boy to…” Lazar trailed off. “It would draw too much attention, something he must try to avoid if he intends to survive the King’s wrath.”

“Gold works as well as any blindfold. As long as he has that, he can do whatever he wants. The war killed men and left their families impoverished. Akielons did not fight fair. It is said they salted the earth of every village they conquered in Alier.”

“Are they truly so famished that they’d trade their children for a bag of gold coins?”

Laurent focused on the moon, its craters and imperfections and the way it seemed to take up the whole sky.

“No,” Jord said. “No village boy is worth a whole bag, no matter how pretty he is.”

*

Aimeric was sitting by the water fountain, waiting for him.

Jord had stayed behind to talk to Auguste and he’d told Laurent to only go as far as the gardens where he could still be seen by the guards in the main hall. The morning had returned the orchids their usual ugliness and Laurent, tired of waiting under the heat for Jord, wandered to the fountain to get away not only from the sun but from the flowers, too.

“Your Highness,” Aimeric said. He was sneering, as usual. “I see you come from the King’s chambers. Tell me, which do you enjoy more?”

Laurent carefully kept his face devoid of expression. “I’m afraid I do not understand your question.”

Aimeric let out a wolfish laugh. His teeth were a flash of white, sharp and very even. “Is your brother a better lover to you than your uncle, is what I meant. Your Highness, please tell me, does the King’s cock taste better?”

Laurent moved swiftly. First, he grabbed Aimeric by the collar of his shirt. The boy must have been waiting for Laurent to slap him, for he closed his eyes and smiled as he waited for the blow. He looked surprised when said blow did not come.

Instead of slapping him, Laurent pushed him backward and into the cold water of the fountain. Aimeric struggled under him, his nails scratching and clawing at Laurent’s arms and face. But Laurent did not let him up.

Underwater, Aimeric’s face did not look quite as amused as it had just mere minutes ago, and Laurent found he could not get enough of this feeling, which he supposed was satisfaction. He shifted his grip from the collar of Aimeric’s shirt to his throat and squeezed.

Arms closed around Laurent’s waist and, pulling him out of the fountain, forced him to let go of Aimeric. Laurent thrashed around and tried to launch forward again, not caring if it was improper for a Prince to do so, but the arms held him in place.

Jord pulled an unconscious Aimeric from the water and laid him on the ground. _Dead_ , Laurent prayed feverishly in his head, _let him be dead_. But no god answered his prayers and soon Aimeric was coughing and spitting out water, his fair skin so pale he looked like he had seen a ghost.

“Easy there,” Auguste said, still holding him back. “Jord, take that child to Paschal. He should be examined.”

Laurent tried to break free again when Jord walked past him, carrying Aimeric over his shoulder as he’d done with Laurent weeks ago. He did not care that he was kicking and scratching as his own brother, all he cared about was that Aimeric was still breathing and it was not fair.

Auguste only tightened his arms around him. “Laurent,” he said, and it sounded like a scolding.

“Let go of me.”

“Not until you’ve calmed down,” Auguste replied easily. “Tell me what happened, it might make you feel better.”

At those words, Laurent went limp in Auguste’s arms, all his anger abandoning him. He wanted his brother to let him go, to stop touching him, but now for a very different reason. Repulsion came to him in waves, as nausea had done, and Laurent could not think of anything but Aimeric’s words.

“Laurent?” Auguste asked. He’d gone so quiet and still, perhaps his brother thought he had fainted. “Darling?”

Only Mother had ever called him that. Father had always been above pet names, claiming only the weakest of babes and the stupidest of slaves needed them. His reaction to the term made Laurent want to weep. Is that what he was, then? Both the weakest and the stupidest out of Aleron’s two sons.

Knowing that any further attempts to get away would be futile, Laurent leaned back against his brother’s chest and fixed his eyes on the fountain in front of him. Struggling was always fun in the beginning, but it got old really fast—something he’d learned with Uncle.

The orchids swayed in the wind and the water continued to flow out of the statue’s eyes, filling the marble pond.

“It was the heat,” Laurent finally said.

Auguste laughed. His chest vibrated with it. “You should see what the summer is like in Akielos, then. There’s no heat like that anywhere in the world.”

 _I’ll never set foot there_ , Laurent wanted to say. _Never._

“You must never go,” Auguste said, still joking. “In case one of your heat strokes results in the murder of an innocent. That’d be a sure way to end the alliance.”

“The boy is fine,” Jord said. He sounded out of breath. Laurent did not look at him, his eyes glued to the fountain. “He is Ambassador Guion’s son.”

“I see,” Auguste said. “Perhaps it’d be best if he and Laurent did not cross paths again for some time.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. I’ll… see to it.”

“Remind me again how old he is?”

Jord’s voice was as low as it had been all those nights ago when he stood in that same garden talking to Lazar. “He is twelve, Your Majesty.”

Auguste said nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! I hope you've enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.  
> For the next one, things are going to be... really different. I'm trying to edit and post every day, but I highly doubt I'll be able to post the next chapter tomorrow (I'm terribly sorry, but online school is kicking my butt and the third chapter is even longer than this one!). I'll try my best, but if you don't see an update tomorrow don't worry, I haven't abandoned this fic. I'll post the next chapter on Thursday!  
> I believe I should have said so in the tags, but it completely slipped my mind: Kastor might be a bit OOC in this fic. Hopefully, you'll give him a chance. He won't be Auguste 2.0, if that's something that might put you off, but he definitely won't be murdering anyone lmao. Just wanted to give you all a warning about it, in case that's something that really offends you.  
> Thank you all for reading and please forgive this tediously long Author's note!!


	4. Three

**Three**

The journey to Arles lasted almost a month.

To Damianos, it sometimes felt as though they had been traveling for years, for he had no one but Nikandros to talk to. It had been fun at the beginning—they’d wrestle and tell jokes, some days even going as far as pulling pranks on Kastor—but as the days began to pass Damianos discovered there was little to do besides hearing Nik’s same three jokes and watching Kastor and Jokaste kiss.

They stopped at Arran for three days and then again at Chasteigne for four. Even his father had grown tired and irritable by the time they reached Arles. Hypermenestra tried her best to keep him happy, but there was only so much she could do to make four weeks of almost incessant riding bearable, and by the time they marched into Arles it seemed like she too was in a foul mood.

Damianos had already met King Auguste at Marlas. Closer in age to Kastor than him, Auguste had taken Damianos by surprise when he asked him to duel with him after he and Theomedes had signed the peace treaty. He was fast and strong, but Damianos suspected his real weakness was his honor. He’d allowed Damianos to pick up his sword during their friendly duel and that had been the sole reason for Damianos’s victory. Had Auguste of Vere not been so utterly decent, Damianos might have been able to hate him.

King Auguste was already waiting for them at the entrance of the palace. There were heralds and guards swarming the place, but Damianos paid little attention to what was happening around him. He too was weary from the long journey and could not care less about the formalities associated with being the Prince of Akielos. He wanted to make his father proud but, at the same time and with the same intensity, he wanted to remain on Kastor’s good side. In order to do that, Damianos had to be very mindful of what he said and did during this visit to Arles.

If he shone too brightly, Kastor would hate him for soaking up all the attention. If he was rude or anything short of amicable, his father would punish him. And knowing his father, the punishment for disrespecting their new allies would be of the most severe nature.

As he dismounted his horse, the only thing on his mind was that he could not wait to be led to his rooms and, after almost a month of sleeping in the most uncomfortable places and positions, lay on a real bed. Perhaps before the moon rose in the sky that night he would have a warm body sleeping next to his in that very same bed.

Damianos stood between his father and his brother as King Auguste welcomed them into his home. His golden crown was the same color as his hair and the way it reflected the sunlight left Damianos open-mouthed. Kastor’s stiffness confirmed to him that he was not the only one who had noticed the similarities between the King of Vere and Jokaste. Even their eyes, although differently shaped, seemed to Damianos to be the same shade of ocean blue.

“—and be welcome to stay as long as it pleases you.”

Nikandros, standing behind him, leaned forward to whisper into his ear. “At least pretend you’re paying attention.”

“I am,” Damianos whispered back. “Pretending, I mean.”

King Auguste shook Theomedes’s hand and commanded a couple of his personal guards to escort the royal family to their side of the palace. The east wing apparently had been prepared to host all of them, a party of almost thirty people. He wondered if he’d be forced to share a dormitory with Kastor, but then he remembered the talk his father had given him before they started the ride to Arles.

“There is little the Veretians hate more than bastards,” Theomethes had said to his son. “For as long as we stay with them you must not bed any woman unless you plan on marrying her.”

“If they hate bastards so much, won’t they be offended that Kastor is coming with us?”

Theomedes had smiled. “That is the beauty of alliances, son. They are nothing but a tug of war.”

In other words, Damianos thought, what the people of Vere thought of Kastor’s status as a bastard mattered very little. And maybe, just maybe, Damianos could also get away with fucking women during his stay there. If it proved to be impossible, then he would have to contend himself with fucking pleasure slaves. If there was something Vere was famous for, it was the quality of its pets.

Kastor would most likely share a bed with Jokaste, which meant Damianos would have his own rooms. Nikandros, no matter how loyal or close to Damianos he was, would never be allowed to sleep in the same rooms as him in a foreign country.

As he made his way to the east wing along with his family, Damianos could not help but feel self-aware. He usually did not care for clothes—in Akielos he often walked around his own home in nothing but sandals—but here everywhere he looked people were dressed in a way that left everything to the imagination. Even the slaves seemed to be draped in more cloth than Damianos with his white cotton chiton.

Even though it was summer, the heat here was nothing compared to the high temperatures of Ios, something Damianos found reassuring. If he had to wear more layers it was nice to know at least the weather was giving him this small advantage. Back home he could not have endured wearing anything but his lightest chiton this time of the year.

Jokaste was five steps away from him, walking with her arm intertwined with Kastor’s. Her long white dress swayed in the light breeze, giving the illusion that she floated instead of walked like all the other mortals. From behind, Damianos could appreciate the complicated plaits her hair had been combed into. He then realized he had been wrong to compare her golden locks to King Auguste’s. Her hair was the color of pale wheat, whereas Auguste’s was brighter, closer to gold.

Tearing his eyes off Jokaste, Damianos turned to Nikandros and said, “We should go exploring later.”

“Exploring?” Nik asked. He was not fooled by Damianos’s nonchalant tone. “This place is not a cave to be _explored_. It’s a palace.”

“Palaces often hold more secrets than caves,” Damianos said. “Besides, aren’t you curious to know how they train?”

At that comment, Nik bristled. “I have seen them fight,” he said in a very even, very unlike him, voice.

“So have I,” Damianos said, but he was not thinking of the war. It was his duel with King Auguste he saw when he closed his eyes—the way he held his sword, the swiftness of his movements, his smile towards the end—and when he opened them again he was standing outside of his rooms.

He did not even bother with a bath before collapsing on the bed, burying his head under one of the pillows. His last conscious thought was that everything around him smelled like flowers.

*

“I thought King Auguste had a brother,” Jokaste said to Kastor. Her voice carried. “Does he not live here?”

She and Kastor were lounging by the fountain. It was a hideous piece of architecture, in Damianos’s opinion, but neither his brother nor his wife seemed to care for it. They only had eyes for each other. Or, at least, Kastor only had eyes for Jokaste. More than once had Damianos caught her looking in his direction, a pensive look on her face.

“There are rumors about him,” Kastor said. Knowing him, he could not care less about the King’s younger brother. He was only trying to entertain Jokaste. He knew, as well as Damianos, that a bored Jokaste always meant trouble. “It is said he’s nothing like Auguste.”

Jokaste tilted her head to the side, exposing the milk-like skin of her throat. “Will he be at the feast tonight?”

“I’m not his keeper,” Kastor said irritably. “Why are you so interested in him anyways? He will never be King.”

 _Neither will you_ , Damianos imagined her saying.

Instead, Jokaste laughed. “In Chasteigne, the villagers told me I looked like him. I’m only curious to see if I’ve finally found my match.”

Damianos tuned them out after that. He did not care much for gossip, never had, and it felt somehow wrong to be speaking of the King’s brother with such lack of decorum. In Akielos, men were punished for far less than bad-mouthing the royalty, and, if the rumors told about the Veretians were true, here they favored the lash over a beating. Damianos had no intention of being strapped to the cross and whipped raw, especially not for insulting some spoiled brat he had not had the displeasure of meeting yet.

The welcome feast that night was the most boring one Damianos had ever attended. Sitting beside his father, he was forced to listen to his conversation with King Auguste, which not for one second steered away from politics and trade routes and all that nonsense Kastor was obviously more suited to understand than Damianos.

His father had brought the finest of meads as a gift to their host—for rumors had it that King Auguste did not enjoy wine—and Damianos found himself drinking more than he typically would at an event like this. There was nothing to do but drink. Even Nikandros seemed to be knocking back cup after cup of that sweet mead.

Better drunk than overly-aware of Jokaste’s eyes on him, Damianos thought as he sipped his drink.

“If the gods had gifted me with a daughter,” his father said in practiced Veretian, “she’d have been promised to your brother. That was the way to seal alliances when my father was King.”

At the mention of his younger brother, King Auguste’s face instantly hardened. He was a beautiful man and Damianos had rarely seen him scowling. Memories of their duel came to him again: his sly smile as his sword cut through the air and met Damianos’s, his eagerness to accept Damianos’s hand to lift himself off the floor when it was all done. He had not seemed like an ill-tempered ruler then, but looking at him now Damianos wished his father had not said anything.

“My brother is thirteen,” he said, voice flat and sharp at the same time. The whole table had gone very quiet, reduced to mere whispers and murmurs, and all eyes were on the King of Vere as he spoke. “Even if you had a daughter, he’s still too young to enter an arranged marriage.”

Theomedes merely blinked. He opened his mouth as if to speak, and then closed it again.

Jokaste, seated in front of Damianos with Kastor on her left, took advantage of the sudden silence and said, “And where is your brother, Your Highness? I’m afraid we have not been introduced.”

Damianos cleared his throat loudly. By the expression on King Auguste’s face, it seemed Jokaste’s question would not be answered in a very polite fashion. Wanting to avoid any more awkwardness on their very first meal together, Damianos reached for his cup and raised it high over his head.

“A toast,” he said, “to the alliance.”

He did not miss the grateful look King Auguste sent in his direction.

*

In Vere, time went by differently.

The sun-filled days stretched on and on, hour by hour, with such parsimony it was frustrating. Damianos could not find enough activities to keep himself busy, and not even sparring tired him enough to nap after lunch was eaten.

The nights were somehow worse. He liked the pets, he really did. All of them were well-trained, some not only in bedroom skills but also in other sorts of performances, and yet Damianos would send them away as soon as he had found his relief. They did not beg to stay with him for the night and Damianos did not offer. And so he spent the time after they’d gone lying in bed, staring at the unpolluted ceiling above him and not being able to fall asleep until the early hours of the morning.

He realized a week after his arrival that what he was missing was the suffocating heat of Ios, lying on his bed with a body beside him that seemed to steam when touched. Here, the sunlight did not burn, no matter how much time one spent under it. Even Jokaste, with her fair skin that had never tanned well, was tired of the lukewarm mornings and afternoons spent inside the palace.

On the morning of the tenth day, Damianos sought out Nik after breakfast. He would not take no for an answer again, not when it felt like he might go crazy with boredom.

“Shouldn’t you be in that meeting your father was telling you about yesterday?”

Damianos waved his hand dismissively. “Kastor will be there,” he explained. “There’s no need for me to go, too.”

“As the future King of Akielos, you—”

“—have responsibilities,” Damianos said. “I know. But what good will I be to my people if I die tonight in my sleep?”

“Why would you die tonight in your sleep?” Nik asked, biting the hook.

“If nothing exciting happens to me today, I’ll have to impale myself on a spear.”

Nikandros looked murderous. He shushed Damianos and craned his neck to see if the hall was still empty. “Don’t joke about that,” he whispered, even though they were the only ones who had stayed behind after breakfast. “If one of the King’s men heard you...”

Damianos felt his face heat up. He had forgotten all about the assassination attempt on King Auguste by one of his guards. When the news of the incident had reached Ios a few weeks had already passed, and since it was a month-long journey by now King Auguste looked as healthy and strong as he had in Marlas. It was easy to forget a spear had nearly pierced through his heart.

“Come with me to the arena,” Damianos said and took a sharp turn to the left. “I heard some of our men were going to train there today instead of doing leaps around the palace.”

In the training arena, a show had already started by the time he and Nikandros had made it there. Two Akielons—Pallas and Galen, if Damianos recalled correctly—were tied together in a tight embrace, each trying to push the other to the ground. Naked, drenched in sweat, and covered in dirt, they wrestled for what seemed like seconds to Damianos, surrounded by a tight circle of Veretians who seemed more scandalized by their nudity than by the fierceness of their fight.

“I— _yield_ ,” Galen managed to say with Pallas’s arm around his neck.

As soon as they separated, men began to line up to congratulate Pallas on his victory, but one man in particular caught Damianos’s attention. He was wearing the colors of the King’s Guard, but he looked younger than the rest of his companions. When he patted Pallas on the shoulder, his hand lingered. And Pallas smiled.

“Has this been entertaining enough for you?” Nik asked. He did not seem to like being around so many of King Auguste’s guards. Most of them must have followed him to war, yet Damianos could not remember seeing any of their faces before. Perhaps Nik’s memory was sharper than his. “You should go next.”

“And who would I fight?”

“One of the guards, of course. You’d win.”

Damianos could not help but laugh. “I know I would,” he said, not caring if he sounded egotistical.

“Then why don’t you?”

“I’m afraid I’ll break their necks,” Damianos said.

Nikandros seemed to agree, for he stood silently by him as they watched another fight begin. Once it was over, he did not suggest again that Damianos joined in. Things were tense enough as they were without the Prince of Akielos snapping the neck of one of his host’s guards.

Damianos spotted Jokaste lounging by the gardens on her own when he was walking back towards the east wing. Her dress was more Veretian than Akielon, yet it suited her. It was a pale blue color that made her fair skin look almost transparent, her veins almost as blue as the fabric she was wearing. It was the first time since everything had happened that Damianos saw her alone.

Nikandros had stayed at the arena, watching the men shoot arrows through apples and oranges. He’d thought it was terribly bizarre that up north they’d waste food in petty games when in the south people starved.

“Take a walk with me,” Jokaste said as soon as she saw him. In a matter of seconds, she had draped herself around him—her small hand was on his arm, her head on his shoulder—and Damianos still had not learned how to deny her anything. “Aren’t these flowers just hideous?”

Damianos looked over to the flower beds she was pointing to. The petals were an angry violet color that made his eyes hurt if he stared at them for too long. Orchids. Those flowers grew near his mother’s grave; he’d know them anywhere.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Jokaste continued when Damianos did not answer. They walked deeper into the gardens, the main hall disappearing behind them with every step they took. “Why?”

 _Because you married my brother_ , Damianos thought. _Because you chose him over me._

“I don’t want to give Kastor another reason to hate me,” he found himself saying. There was something about her—what, he could not have said—that made Damianos want to spill all his secrets. He bit his tongue, hard, and willed himself to shut up.

No matter how beautiful, Jokaste was still a snake. And snakes did not know how to keep secrets.

“Kastor does not hate you,” she said and her voice was almost soft. Almost. “He’s just… more ambitious than you.”

Damianos could not keep quiet, no matter how hard he bit his own tongue. “I don’t need you to tell me what my brother is or is not,” he said forcefully. He knew Kastor better than anyone. “You got what you wanted, in the end.”

Jokaste rubbed her cheek on his shoulder. Her skin was warm and silk-like. “Did I?”

They had made it to the water fountain without Damianos realizing it. The statue there was of a young woman, her tears streaming down her face and filling the pond with water. Her face was perfect—an aristocratic nose, almond-shaped eyes, a full mouth—and yet Damianos could not stand the sight of her. It felt too personal, like spying on someone else’s private miseries, and he could not understand whose idea it had been to put such a horrible piece in the middle of a garden as beautiful as this. Veretians—one could never understand their way of thinking.

Her hand touched the water and retreated. When she looked at him, there was something fierce in her gaze.

“A little bird told me a secret,” she said casually, her grip on Damianos’s arm tightening. Like a snake, she was waiting for the perfect time to sink her fangs in him. “It seems the young Prince tried to murder a child in these very gardens.”

Above them, the sun hid behind a cloud, as if ashamed of Jokaste’s words.

“Is that why we haven’t met him yet? Does his brother hold him in a prison cell underground?”

Jokaste had always loved gossip, but this seemed ridiculous even for her. Whoever had fed her such lies must not have been very bright. Or perhaps they just did not know how venomous she could be to those who wronged her.

“And that’s not all,” she said. “It seems the King’s uncle has fled the city. My little bird told me it was all the Prince’s fault.”

Damianos rolled his eyes at that. “You heard Auguste. The boy is _thirteen_. What could he possibly have done to drive his own uncle away? Jokaste, I believe your little bird is nothing but a brainless fowl.”

“I remember when you were thirteen,” she said, ignoring his jests. “Do you remember? I was your first.”

Of course he did. He’d always remember. Her hair in his fists, her arms around his neck. Sliding into her as she moaned his name into his ear. It all seemed like a fever dream to him now: hazy and delirious. Two years after that first time, she would begin to fuck Kastor. Four years after that, she would be married to him. Damianos wondered how long it would take for her to give his brother a son.

“I do not,” he said and left her standing next to the water.

*

Two weeks after arriving at Arles, Damianos met the Prince of Vere.

Kastor had dared him to drink three cups of mead mixed with red wine during that night’s feast and Damianos had accepted the challenge. Soon, it turned into a series of bets and games and alcohol. Jokaste watched, her mouth curled in distaste, as he and Kastor downed drink after drink with ease. It was the most fun Damianos had had in months.

It all came to a halt after the feast when Nikandros was helping him back to his rooms.

Damianos was not drunk—at least, not the drunkest he had ever been—but he still draped one arm over Nikandros shoulders to put some of his weight on him. The night was cool and Damianos hated it. He missed Ios, its cliffs and waves, its marvelous heat. Too busy thinking about his home, he did not feel Nikandros freeze against him and stop on his tracks.

He fell to the floor in slow motion, or so it seemed like to his fogged brain. His knees hit the black stone floor with a thud so loud it startled him. The pain shot up his thighs all the way to his hips and he was so angry at Nikandros for letting him fall that he did not notice the three figures standing in front of him.

“An Akielon groveling on its knees,” Damianos heard someone say in perfect Veretian.“How fitting.”

When he looked up from the ground, he found two men and a boy staring down at him, all of them sporting different expressions.

The boy—the one who’d just referred to Damianos as _it_ —was dressed in the most elaborate clothes Damianos had ever seen. They were such a dark shade of blue they looked black, and there were golden laces everywhere. It was as though someone had cut the boy everywhere and then stitched him back together using thread made of gold.

He stood in front of Damianos with his hands behind his back, so still and straight-backed he did not look like a boy at all, but like a small soldier. Even in the poorly lit hall, his hair shone as bright as the sun. He wore it plaited into a simple braid that hung loosely over his right shoulder, the end tied tightly by a blue string.

Behind him stood the man Damianos had seen in the arena some days ago. He was the one who’d congratulated Pallas with so much enthusiasm it had made Damianos feel like he was intruding by watching them talk. On the boy’s right side stood another man, slightly older and better built too, who Damianos had never seen before. He was wearing the colors of the King’s Guard.

“Your Highness,” the guard said to the boy. His voice was sharp, not the kind of tone one should use when addressing—

The Prince.

Now that Damianos knew who the boy was, he felt stupid for not realizing it sooner. He was the spitting image of the King, although younger and softer in ways Auguste no longer was. The hair, the eyes, the skin… Damianos felt the shame rise inside him; for a split-second, he’d thought the boy was Jokaste.

“Exalted,” Nik said, trying to get his attention. He was trying to help Damianos to his feet.

The boy—no, the Prince—gave him an unpleasant smile. Then, in carefully practiced Akielon, he said, “Which one is the pet and which one is the Prince? I can not tell them apart.”

Damianos rose from the ground, ignoring the throbbing pain that exploded in his right knee as he did so. There was blood running down his calf, yet Damianos could not be bothered to wipe it away or look down to assess the wound. The buzzing and giddiness from the mead and the wine were gone. In their place, there was a white rage that pulsed inside him like a second heart. Had he had a sword, he would have buried it to the hilt into that little brat’s chest.

“I speak your language better than you speak mine, sweetheart,” Damianos said in Veretian. He felt Nik go very still next to him. “Perhaps you’d be more comfortable insulting your guest in your mother tongue.”

The Prince flushed but did not relent. He opened his mouth to reply, a fierce look twisting his features, but then the older man put his hand on his shoulder.

“Your Highness,” he said. “Your brother is waiting.”

“He must be wondering where you are,” added the other man. _Pallas’s friend_ , Damianos named him in his head.

At the mention of his brother, the Prince smoothed his features into an expressionless mask. He sidestepped Nik, who looked like he wanted to rip him apart, and did not look back once. After a second’s hesitation, Pallas’s friend and the guard trailed after him, giving Damianos what he interpreted as apologizing looks.

“Don’t,” Damianos said, as soon as they were alone and Nik had opened his mouth. He held onto his friend’s shoulder once more, steadying himself when the dizziness returned. “Not now.”

“Damianos—”

“Tomorrow,” Damianos promised. “I need to sleep this off first.”

As he laid in bed that night, tossing and turning and missing the heat—not only of the Akielon sun but of a warm body next to his—Jokaste’s words came back to him. He heard her inside his head as clearly as if she were standing right next to his bed.

_It seems the young Prince tried to murder a child._

After that night’s brief encounter, Damianos did not doubt her little bird anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! I tried really hard to write and edit this chapter yesterday, but I'm only now posting it (hopefully you'll forgive my delay).  
> Some quick notes about this chapter:  
> \- the story will still be told through Laurent's POV but every two chapters (so, Chapter six, for example) will be told through Damianos's perspective. I really, really hope that's not off-putting to you! It'll make sense later on. The next chapter will NOT be a re-telling of this one through Laurent's eyes, I refuse to put you through that. There's nothing I hate more than having to read the same stuff over and over again.  
> \- some of the lines of dialogue in this chapter belong to C.S Pacat (we all know which ones I'm talking about). I just wanted to make a quick disclaimer about that.
> 
> The next chapter will be up later this week, probably on Friday night/Saturday morning. Thank you all so much for reading! Your comments are so kind and lovely, I wish I could give you guys a hug! Please stay safe, stay inside, and stay healthy. Or as healthy as one can be when there's a global pandemic going on. Thank you, thank you, thank you!


	5. Four

**Four**

The barbarians were _everywhere_. 

They ate where Auguste ate, they lounged in the gardens and the training arena. They strolled through the palace as though it was theirs, as though they would not have besieged it had Auguste not stopped them. Laurent could not make up his mind about who he hated the most: them or himself.

No matter how skilled he was at lying to everyone else, Laurent had a hard time believing his own lies. At first, he’d told himself he only hated the Akielons because they had started the war, which had resulted in his life being torn apart, but he could only justify his hatred to an extent. At night, when he was alone and sick to his stomach of spending all day locked in his rooms, he could not lie to himself as easily as he could under the sunlight. 

He hated them because they had stolen Auguste away from him. And, in a way, his uncle too.

Shame visited him every night without fail. Soon, Laurent discovered that no matter how much vials he stole from the infirmary or how much chamomile tea he ordered the servants to bring him, he could not fall asleep. And so he dreamt awake, staring at the white ceiling or at the light blue wall, and those dreams left him feeling nauseous and disgusted. Sometimes, when he opened the door to let Jord in—he had now been tasked with the mundane job of bringing Laurent all his meals—Laurent could not meet his eyes. Jord did not ask him any questions, but Laurent had caught him staring at him more than once, head tilted to the side and eyes narrowed to slits, like he was trying to solve a particularly hard riddle.

There was no one to talk to about those things, and so Laurent kept silent.

Auguste spent his days entertaining the barbarians, but his nights were reserved for Laurent. Once dinner was over, he’d either come to Laurent’s rooms or have Jord and Lazar escort Laurent to his own chambers. They’d talk—or rather, Auguste would talk and Laurent would listen—and sometimes even play games. Laurent should probably have found playing chess with his older brother boring, but he loved it. He loved having Auguste’s attention, his hand ruffling Laurent’s hair after a clever move, his knowing smile when Laurent pretended he did not like the sweets Auguste had sneaked him from dinner. 

But as soon as Auguste was gone the wide-eyed dreaming would begin.

At first, it was only bright images. Uncle’s hand splayed against his stomach. Spying eyes through a slightly ajar door. Auguste’s face when he’d told Laurent he knew. Then, it mutated into sounds and smells and tastes. Red wine, like blood, both sour and sweet. The slaps and the poorly concealed whimpers. Smoke rising from the notes Uncle would slip him during the day. 

Today, he blinked and saw Jord’s face in front of him. Thinking it was a dream, Laurent reached out and touched his cheek. He recoiled as if burned when his hand met flesh, warm and solid. The more he blinked, the further away the dreams went, and he realized he was still in bed, Jord towering over him with his hands gripping Laurent’s shoulders. 

Jord was shaking him.

“Stop that, you brute,” Laurent said, pushing him away with as much force as he could muster. He sat up on the bed, telling himself he would not throw up on Jord again, and blinked some more. “What were you shaking me for?”

Jord’s face was pale. He was standing next to the bed, the breakfast tray laid scattered on the floor. Had he dropped it? “You did not answer the door. And when I came in…” He trailed off. “Your eyes were open.”

“And?”

“I thought you were dead, Your Highness,” Jord said in a quiet voice. 

Laurent refused to look him in the eyes. He ran a hand over the bedding, smoothing it. “As you can see, I’m not dead. I’m afraid you’ll have to endure my presence today, Jord.”

“Your Highness,” Jord said. He did not continue.

“Go fetch me something to eat,” Laurent said when the silence became too much, too heavy. He stared at the fruit platter lying on the floor and felt his stomach turn in on itself. “Bread,” he added. “No grapes.”

Still, Jord did not move. “Perhaps I should escort you to the infirmary. Paschal could—”

“I was not aware,” Laurent drawled out, as though he was talking to an imbecile, something Jord could be a lot of the time, “that breakfast was now being served in the infirmary.”

“Your Highness, you do not look—” Jord cut himself off. What had he been about to say? Laurent could think of many options: well-rested, well-fed, well. “The King is in a meeting, but I could ask him to—”

This time it was Laurent who cut him off. “You will not do such a thing. And if you ignore my orders again, I’ll have you flogged.” He did not need to look at Jord to know he had winced. “Or I’ll sick up all over you again, whatever punishment you think is more severe.”

“The King will have me flogged if something happens to you,” Jord replied. He was quick-minded and silver-tongued when he wanted to be. Sometimes Laurent thought that mouth of his would someday get him in serious trouble. “The sleep you were in… It was unnatural.”

 _Unnatural._ Hadn’t Auguste used that same word, when he’d heard about Laurent? 

“Your brain is unnatural, Jord,” Laurent said. “Now go and get me breakfast. I’ll not ask you again.”

This time Jord complied. He picked the tray from the floor and left, closing the door shut behind him. Only a few minutes had passed when there was a knock on the door, firm and insistent. Laurent threw the covers off him and stomped to the door, yanking it open, his mouth already opening to tell Jord he’d whip his back until it was bleeding. 

It was not Jord standing outside his rooms. It was a woman.

Laurent knew who she was, of course he did. He’d spent the first few days after the Akielons had settled into the east wing forcing Jord and Lazar to tell him everything about everyone in the palace. Auguste had only told him the bare basics: King Theomedes’s wife was dead and he had two sons. He had not mentioned to Laurent that Kastor was a bastard, but Laurent had learned about it from Lazar soon enough. 

The woman standing in front of him was the wife of one of King Theomedes’s sons. The bastard’s, most likely. Laurent could not imagine anyone with her looks falling into bed with that beast he’d met in the hall a few nights ago. Still, he could not be absolutely sure. Akielons’ actions, he had found, escaped all logic and reason.

“You must be King Auguste’s brother,” she said. Her voice was equal parts sweetness and venom. “I’m Jokaste.”

There were no guards standing watch outside the door, which could only mean she’d gotten rid of them. It made Laurent uneasy to know his safety was in the hands of men who were so easily persuaded by a woman. The more he thought about it, the more his stomach sunk.

“I don’t recall asking you your name,” Laurent said sharply. He knew he was walking on thin ice, as Auguste had already warned him. It was a surprise that Prince Damianos had not said anything of their little encounter, but something told Laurent this woman would not keep silent if he outright insulted her. “And I also don’t remember summoning you here.”

“That’s because you did not,” Jokaste said. She pushed her way inside and Laurent did not try to stop her. Had she brought a knife with her, he would be bleeding at her feet already. She walked all the way to the window and stood there, staring at the gardens below. “I’m here to ask you to join us at the feast tonight.”

“I have no interest in sharing meat and wine with you.”

Jokaste laughed. “Neither do I, Your Highness.” Coming out of her mouth, the honorific sounded the same as when Aimeric said it, something to laugh and sneer at. “King Theomedes, on the other hand, feels as though he’s being mocked by your continued absence from formal events.”

Laurent bristled. “There’s no law that requires me to attend meals while your kind is here.”

“Think of it as an invitation,” Jokaste said, already striding back towards him. She must have known Jord would be back at any moment. “Your brother’s already survived a war. I can not help but wonder how unscathed he’ll come out of another.”

And just like that, she left, her loose dress floating all around her in the summer breeze. To Laurent, she looked like a slithering snake. 

“Where are the guards?” Jord asked as soon as he stepped into the room. The tray he was holding looked heavy, but he seemed too distracted to complain about it the way he usually did every morning. “And why is the door unlocked?”

“I’m ravenous,” Laurent said, ignoring his questions. He settled back into bed and reached out for the tray. Thick slices of bread, a pot of honey, and a jug of water. Laurent almost smiled. “Would you like some, Jord?”

Jord stared at him. He had that look on his face again, the riddle-solving one. “Why does this sound like a bribe?”

“Well,” Laurent said, spreading a thick layer of honey over the bread. “Because that’s what it is.”

*

When Auguste saw him enter the dining hall, he looked like a man who’d seen a ghost. He had clearly stopped listening to whatever King Theomedes was telling him and his posture was growing tenser by the second. Soon enough, everyone in the room had turned their heads, craning their necks to follow Auguste’s gaze. 

“Laurent,” Auguste said as Laurent pulled himself a chair and squeezed himself a spot next to him on the table. “What are you doing here?”

“I was hungry,” Laurent said easily, yet he did not reach for any food. Under the table, he grasped Auguste’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said in Akielon to King Theomedes, who was looking at him with wide eyes.

Jokaste, a few seats away, looked pleased. Her husband was sitting next to her, the dark beard on his face making him look just like his father. _Overcompensating_ , Laurent thought and made sure to smile in his direction. Kastor did not return the gesture.

Damianos was sitting right in front of him, which was strange. As the rightful heir, he should have been sitting next to his father, not opposite to him. Again, Akielons’ actions seemed to have very little sense. 

He was wearing a hybrid between a chiton and the Veretian version of a shirt, cream-colored and rich in detail. His olive skin seemed to glow in the candlelight but his eyes looked bored. In fact, his whole body gave away how disinterested he was in what was happening around him, from the slouch of his shoulder to the way he had his elbow on the table, chin in his hand. Damianos was the definition of barbaric.

“This is my brother Laurent,” Auguste said to all once the shock had passed. He was yet to let go of Laurent’s hand under the table. “He’ll be joining us today for dinner.”

“Have some mead, boy,” King Theomedes said, already pouring him a cup. He set it in front of Laurent, either purposefully ignoring Auguste’s stiffness or simply not noticing it. “It’s the finest mead of the south.”

Laurent gave him his most brilliant smile. He took the cup and raised it to his lips, tilting it, but he did not drink. When he set it down on the table, Auguste’s grip on his other hand was so tight he had to bite his cheek to keep from whining. 

There were pets everywhere, Laurent noticed and was not surprised. Uncle had told him stories of the Akielon appetite. He’d told Laurent that in Akielos it was not uncommon for a man to bed women before his wedding night. Bastards, as Kastor’s presence at the table confirmed, were not seen as a disgrace. If anything, they attested to the virility of the man in question. Uncle had laughed as he told Laurent that there were no pets like the ones in Vere anywhere in the world, especially not in Akielos. Once the men got a taste of what the Veretian pets had to offer, he’d said, there was no going back for them.

It did not surprise him, then, to see two of the prettiest pets curled up at Damianos’s feet. They were not blond—or at least not as blond as Laurent was—but their hair was the lightest shade of brown, something a bit uncommon for pets. When they moved, their earrings and necklaces glinted and glimmered. They made Laurent feel sick; he had worn jewelry just like that not too long ago.

He too had sat on the floor, curled up at someone’s feet.

“—would be delighted to have him,” King Theomedes was saying. “Damianos is only five years older than him, after all.”

Laurent knew they were talking about him. He had missed the first half of the conversation, too busy staring at the pets to understand what was being said, but now King Theomedes had his full attention. When he looked up at Damianos, Laurent saw he was no longer slouching over the table or lazily stroking one of the pets’ hair. He’d gone as stiff as Auguste, looking at his father with an unreadable expression on his face.

“We’ll see,” Auguste said in that calm way of his that gave nothing away. Whatever King Theomedes had proposed, his brother did not like it one bit. “I’m sure Damianos has enough responsibilities as it is already. And Laurent…” He paused, tilting his face a bit to look at Laurent’s face. Under the table, his fingers stroked the inside of Laurent’s wrist. “He’s still too young to leave Arles, I’m afraid.”

Jokaste laughed, although Laurent could not understand why. Auguste had told no joke. “Your Majesty, your brother could benefit greatly from staying with us for a season. In Ios, boys are considered men at thirteen.” 

Damianos looked at Laurent for the first time that night. He’d gone back to stroking the pet’s hair, but there was something tense about his movements. They seemed rehearsed, almost forced.

“You must forgive her,” Damianos said quietly to Auguste. “Sometimes Jokaste forgets her place.”

Laurent watched the way Jokaste’s smile crumbled and the way Kastor’s hands disappeared under the table so that no one could see his clenched fists. Neither of them noticed Laurent’s eyes on them. It was one of his newly found talents: spying and collecting secrets. He’d learned the hard way that secrets were often more valuable than gold. _An honorable man might refuse you if you offer him a golden coin_ , Uncle had told him, _but he’ll do whatever you ask him to once you’ve found out his secrets._

“Boys should not be coddled past a certain age,” Jokaste said, and it was clear she was no longer talking to Auguste but to Damianos. “It turns them weak.”

Auguste did not speak right away. The table had gone silent, waiting for a response—either from Auguste or from Damianos—and even the man playing the lyre in the corner had stopped his music. There was nothing the court loved more than gossip and petty fights, this Laurent knew, and they were loving every second of this tension-filled feast. 

At last, Auguste smiled. It was not an unpleasant smile, at least not to those who did not know him, but it made Laurent want to look away from his brother’s face. Auguste let go of his hand under the table and reached for his cup. He looked so unlike himself it made Laurent want to cry. He was nothing like the Auguste who’d chased him around the gardens or carried him over his shoulders some years back. 

“Weakness can be relative,” Auguste said. He took a sip from the cup and set it down again. The sound of metal hitting wood carried. “Mentally, for example, my brother is more than capable of vanquishing all of us.”

Laurent felt his face heat up. “Brother—”

“A sharp mind is no rival to a sharp sword, Your Majesty,” Kastor said. It was the first time Laurent had ever heard him speak. The roughness of his voice and accent made him sound older than he was. “Wars are not won with thoughts.”

King Theomedes laughed. Laurent kept his eyes on Kastor, catching the way Jokaste leaned closer to whisper something into his ear. The scene made Laurent feel grateful for the Veretian dislike of bastards.

“What is strategizing for, then?” King Theomedes asked. “Thoughts win wars more often than swords do, son. One must only look at us to see that.”

Kastor’s mouth was a flat line, lips almost hidden away by his dark beard. He did not answer his father.

Damianos was looking at Laurent. He looked upset, as though Laurent had somehow wronged him. Was he angry because his brother had not succeeded in insulting Laurent? Or was he angry because of Laurent’s overall presence? Whichever the reason for his sulking, it was clear Damianos did not like him. 

“A toast,” said Auguste. He was looking at Damianos, his eyes soft with pity. When Damianos shifted his eyes from Laurent to him, he relaxed. “To the alliance.”

If Laurent didn’t know any better, he’d think the two of them were sharing a private joke.

*

“Where are Jord and Lazar?” Auguste asked him as soon as the door was closed. He had dragged Laurent to his rooms the moment dinner was over, not even bothering to stay around to watch the show some of the pets had put together. “Do they even know where you are?”

“I told them I’d be with you,” Laurent said briskly. Walking over to his brother’s bed, he forced himself to sit down. Even though he couldn’t stand Jord sometimes, he did not want his brother to punish him. “I haven’t done anything wrong, Auguste. Stop fretting.”

Auguste knelt in front of him. It was bizarre: the King of Vere on his knees for a thirteen-year-old boy. “Of course you haven’t,” he said. “I’ve always wanted you to join me at dinner. It’s just—”

“You were not expecting me,” Laurent finished for him. “I’m sorry.”

When Auguste’s hands covered his on his lap, Laurent went very still. They had touched before a million times—a few hours ago they’d held hands under the table like children—but it was always fleeting, a hand on Lauren’t hair or a squeeze of his shoulder. Now, however, Auguste was not pulling away. His hands stayed on Laurent’s, soft and heavy, and Laurent could think of nothing else.

Had he always been this needy, pathetic creature? Laurent could not understand his own wants. Did he _want_ to lean into Auguste’s touch? Or did he want his brother to never lay a hand on him again? 

Mother had always hugged him. She’d called him _darling_. Laurent thought of Jokaste’s sneering words, how sharp and ugly they seemed to him now that he allowed himself to dwell on them. Perhaps she was right and Laurent was weak. Uncle had never called him weak, but he’d said… 

“—ent? Are you listening to me?”

“Yes,” Laurent said. 

Auguste’s hands left his. He cupped Laurent’s face, forcing Laurent’s eyes to focus. “You were not,” he chided him gently. “How long has this been going on?”

“What?”

“Laurent,” was all Auguste said.

“I do not know what you mean.”

For a second, neither spoke. Laurent knew Auguste was giving him a chance to explain himself, but he could not speak. His throat felt tight and painful, although he did not know why. It was not crying he felt like.

Perhaps the mead he had pretended to drink at the feast was like Uncle’s wine. Perhaps any moment now Laurent would start to feel dizzy and tired and he’d laid back on the bed and—

“Jord told me,” Auguste said. _Stupid dog,_ Laurent thought. He was starting to regret not having him flogged earlier that morning. “I’ve sent a letter to an old friend in Patras.”

Laurent pushed Auguste’s hands away. “I’m sure they’ll be delighted to have me,” he snapped. Suddenly, he could not get out of the room fast enough. “At least you’re not sending me to Akielos with those—”

“I’m not sending you away, Laurent,” Auguste said, pulling him back to the bed by his wrists. “There’s a physician in Patras I want you to meet. I’ve asked my friend to bring him along when he comes to visit me.”

Thoughts were running wild through Laurent’s head. He’d thought he knew all of Auguste’s friends. “A physician?”

Auguste hesitated. He lifted himself off the ground where he’d been kneeling and sat on the bed next to Laurent. “It is said he traveled south many years ago, past Akielos. He doesn’t deal with body injuries like Paschal does. He’s… different.”

 _I’m not sick_ , Laurent thought of saying. Instead, what came out was, “There’s nothing south of Akielos.”

“There is. There are cities and kingdoms of all kinds once you cross the Ellosean Sea,” Auguste said. “I’ll try to find you a book about them if you want. I’m sure Father owned several.”

“Why do you want me to meet him?”

“I meant what I said earlier tonight,” Auguste answered. “You have a sharp mind, Laurent, you really do. And sometimes… sometimes the mind gets sick, just like the body does. This man is good at what he does.”

“But what does he _do_? I don’t need him to do anything to me.”

Auguste reached out for him—his shoulder this time—but Laurent moved away. He found he could think clearer without anyone touching him, and this was a conversation he wanted to have with a clear head. Auguste’s jaw twitched, muscles tightening, and he let his hand drop.

“He won’t do anything to you. I believe that’s not how these things work. You don’t have to do anything but meet him, that’s all I’m asking of you. If you hate him, I’ll send him away and never mention him to you again.”

“You think I’m sick,” Laurent said, thoughts coming at him from all directions. “You think my mind is gone. I’m—I’m not crazy, Auguste.”

“Of course you’re not crazy,” Auguste said roughly. It was clear he wanted to reach out for Laurent again but did not dare to try. “But you’re not alright either, Laurent. I thought with him gone you’d get better, that maybe you just needed time, but this isn’t better. This is—You’re not eating and you’re not sleeping. And now you’ve taken to staring off and you won’t even answer when people call your name.”

“I do eat,” Laurent said but it sounded dull even to his own ears. Bread and grapes could hardly be considered a meal, and that’s all he’d been able to stomach for weeks. “I sleep just fine. You’re only looking for reasons to—to—”

“I’m not looking for anything. All I want, all I’ve ever wanted, is for you to be healthy. And happy. Right now you’re neither of those things, Laurent. You can not deny that.”

It was one thing to feel like something was wrong with him—hadn’t he always known, in a way, that he was the spare?—but it was another thing entirely to have his brother say it to his face. If Auguste, who claimed to still love him despite everything he’d learned about Laurent, could not be deceived… Perhaps Laurent was not such a good liar after all.

Something uncoiled inside him, became sharper, meaner. The words were sitting on his tongue, just waiting for him to say them. Laurent bit his cheek hard enough to draw blood, not in an attempt to silence himself but because he wanted to feel the hurt, the tingling pain, and then the words were tumbling out of his mouth without him having to coax them out at all.

“You’re just like Uncle,” he said and time froze all around them. “He didn’t want me to grow up either.”

Had Auguste been a different sort of man, he’d have hit Laurent across the face. If he were Kastor, he’d probably have had Laurent strapped to the cross and flogged for his disrespect. But Auguste was Auguste, trusting and kind and too forgiving. He only sat there and took what Laurent was giving him, his face closing off until there was nothing but weariness on it.

“Then maybe I should consider Theomedes’s offer and ship you off to Akielos,” Auguste said. He was already pulling away from the bed, away from Laurent, and walking towards the door. “Wait here until Jord comes to fetch you.”

There were so many things Laurent wanted to say at that moment— _I’m not a thing to be shipped off, I don’t need Jord to watch my every move, I hate you, I hate you so much_ —but when he opened his mouth he realized he didn’t mean any of them. His tongue laid flat in his mouth, refusing to cooperate. 

“Auguste,” he finally managed to say, but it was too late. His brother had already left.

* 

Jord tried to stop him, but Laurent was quicker. If Lazar had been there, things might have gone differently. Lazar was, after all, the fastest of the three. But he wasn’t there—if the rumors were true, he’d already found himself an Akielon pet to fuck—and so Laurent managed to get away from Jord and sneak into the gardens.

Laurent had seen him walk in there alone for the first time in days. There was always someone with him, which made Laurent want to laugh. What kind of brute hated solitude so much he needed to always be in the company of others? Except for today. Today he was alone and unguarded, and he hadn’t even noticed Laurent staring at him from afar.

Almost running and overly aware that Jord was coming after him any second, Laurent made his way past the flower beds and rose bushes, past the fountain, coming to a stop only when he almost collapsed against the giant animal he’d been chasing.

“What are _you_ doing here?” Damianos asked him brusquely. Apparently, not only did he look like a beast, but he also talked like one. “If you—”

“I’m here,” Laurent said, “to offer you a deal.”

Damianos frowned. “A deal? Why would I want to make a deal with you?”

By then Jord had already spotted them and was running towards them with a horrified look on his face. He really did look like a dog chasing a bone, Laurent thought. He did not feel bad for Jord, not after learning he’d wasted good bread and honey to bribe him into silence and still it had not worked.

“Let us speak in your tongue,” Laurent said, already switching to Akielon. He’d been studying the grammar for days while he waited for the opportunity to present itself. “Jord will not be able to understand us if we do.”

“And who’s Jord?” Damianos said. He still sounded guarded and dismissive, but he’d replied in Akielon.

It was small, but it was a start.

Laurent smiled. “My dog,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! Again, I wanted to thank you all so much for giving this WIP a chance (I know how scary it can be to get emotionally invested in something that's not completed yet) and for all your lovely comments. I love reading what you think is going to happen!  
> I know I've been updating almost every day, but as I've said before online school is trying to murder me. I won't be able to post Chapter 5 until Sunday night/Monday morning. Hopefully, the wait will be worth it.  
> I'm sorry (or not) for the cliffhanger and for taking so long to post this chapter. Thank you again for reading! Stay safe x


	6. Five

**Five**

Damianos’s rooms were not what Laurent had been expecting. There were no clothes scattered on the floor, for one. The bed—a real wooden bed, not a pallet—was made and showed no signs of having been used recently. Laurent knew servants handled such matters, yet he could not help but feel impressed by the overall tidiness of the place. He’d been expecting vulgarity, yet he could not find any. It made Laurent feel deeply uncomfortable; there were no differences between this room and his own.

The door was wide open and Jord stood outside of the room, guarding it. That had been his only condition, and Laurent had agreed. If Damianos tried to murder him, at least this way Jord would know about it right away. It was much harder to prevent an assassination when there was a locked door standing in one’s way.

“Speak then,” Damianos said, sitting on his bed. His Akielon was sharp and succinct, like an arrow. It lacked his brother’s roughness, but it was clear they’d had the same master. “What deal are you offering?”

Laurent paced slowly around the room. The sunlight crept in through the windows, casting strange shadows around him. He had not set foot in the east wing since Mother had died and everything about it felt disconcerting. Had he been in this room before? If he had, he could not remember it.

“I want you to convince my brother to let me go back to Ios with you,” Laurent said. He kept his hands clasped behind his back, afraid Damianos would see them trembling and think him nervous. “He seems to… like you. It’ll take some convincing, but if you are insistent enough he’ll consider it.”

Damianos’s eyes looked amused. He lifted an eyebrow, the gesture as mocking as Aimeric’s sneers. “And why would I do that?”

 _So predictable_ , Laurent thought. Of course he’d want something in return. It was only natural, after all. Such was the nature of deals: both parties benefitted equally from them. Damianos was a Prince, just like Laurent, and Princes did not want for anything. If they did, they simply reached out and took it. What to offer someone who already had the world in his hands?

“In return, I’ll offer you some valuable counsel,” Laurent said and waited for Damianos to laugh.

Indeed, doubling over and clutching at his stomach, Damianos laughed. It was a deep, rich sound that echoed around the room as if amplified. He wiped at his eyes, thumbing away invisible tears, and laughed some more. 

Laurent stood in front of him, reminding himself that he’d anticipated this, that if he lost his nerve the opportunity would be lost and it would not come again. Not any time soon. He could endure this idiot laughing at him if it meant he got what he wanted in the end. 

“You little brat,” Damianos wheezed out. He was breathing hard, and a small part of Laurent wished he’d choke and die right there. “Why would I take advice from _you_? You’re a child.”

Laurent had also been expecting that. “Because no one else will ever be as honest with you as I’ll be. I don’t care for you or your family, but I can not turn a blind eye to what I’ve seen. My brother—” He stopped, throat tightening painfully. “If there is another war…”

Damianos was no longer laughing. He looked as still as a painting. “Why would there be another war? My father is pleased with the alliance. Are you saying your brother isn’t?”

How, Laurent wondered, could a head as big as Damianos’s be so empty? 

“Of course my brother is pleased that there is no war,” Laurent snapped. He took a deep breath, reminding himself he was not talking to Jord. “It’s your side that won’t let things be.”

“My side?” Damianos asked, standing up. He was several heads taller than Laurent. His chest was broader, the distance between each shoulder seemed to be a mile long. If he struck Laurent, he’d probably kill him. “If you think you can come to Ios to spy on us, you’re mistaken. I won’t—”

“You stupid beast,” Laurent said, shoving him. Damianos did not move an inch. “I’m trying to help you, don’t you see? It’s not just your life that’s on the line, but your father’s, too.”

Damianos blinked. “What?” he asked, like the idiot he was. 

“Convince my brother to let me go with you,” Laurent said, “and I’ll tell you what I know.”

Damianos’s face twisted in anger. He made as if to grab Laurent by the arm, but the sound of Jord clearing his throat stopped him. 

“Exalted,” Jord said from the doorway, “if you’d be so kind as to not touch the boy.”

Damianos did not miss the way Jord’s hand was resting on the hilt of his sword. “He _pushed_ me!” he said, pointing his finger at Laurent. “He’s a little—”

“Are you aware,” Laurent said, shoving him again, “that you’re still speaking Akielon? Jord can not understand you.”

Spluttering, Damianos said, “He’s—And you—”

Laurent rolled his eyes. “I think you’ll benefit greatly from having someone around you that knows how to think. There are over four weeks left until you are to return to Ios. Perhaps you should use that time wisely.”

“Wisely?” 

“Talk to my brother.”

Damianos crossed his arms over his chest. They were thickly carved with muscle, tendons moving under the skin with every breath he took. His heart, Laurent imagined, must have been galloping inside his chest.

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you’ll probably die,” Laurent said. He walked away from the bed, his back turned to Damianos. Jord moved to let him through. “Or not. Perhaps they’ll turn you into a pet when all is said and done.”

Again, Damianos spluttered, but Laurent had heard enough. He slipped past Jord and left, not bothering to turn around and respond to the flow of insults that followed.

*

After that, Damianos could not stay away.

He came up to Laurent at odd times, sometimes alone and sometimes with Nikandros by his side. Jord and Lazar were rarely surprised to see him, but they tensed by Laurent’s side as they struggled to understand what was being said.

“Tell me what you meant that day,” Damianos would say. 

“Have you spoken to my brother?” Laurent would ask. He’d learned to expect the shake of Damianos’s head, the wringing of his hands that meant he was yet to approach Auguste. “Then I won’t tell you.”

Neither Jord nor Lazar knew what was happening. Therefore, they could not report it back to Auguste. Sometimes Jord tried to get Laurent to speak, bribing him with sweets and an hour of unsupervised time, but Laurent did not budge. If anything, it made things more entertaining. For once, instead of being kept in the dark about everything, it was Laurent who held all the secrets. 

He could not stop thinking about how proud of him Uncle would be if he knew.

The days went by in a blur. Now that Laurent had found something he was good at, he wasted no time at perfecting his craft. His eyes became sharper than ever before, seeing things that were there and things that were not. His ears became accustomed to the strain of having to interpret whispers and murmurs. 

Soon enough Laurent realized anything could be traded in for secrets. Pets and servants did not think twice before spilling their guts for a shiny barrette, an extra loaf of bread, or even a copper coin. No one paid them any attention—even pets went by unnoticed when they were not performing—and so they heard everything. When Laurent walked into a room everyone would instantly go silent, watching him, but pets did not have to endure such hassles. They saw and heard and then reported back to Laurent with an ease that was almost frightening. He’d always known there was power in secrets, but he had underestimated just how much.

In the mornings, if the sky was clouded, he stayed inside his rooms and studied. Akielon grammar had its secrets, too: _friend_ and _foe_ sprung from the same root, one may say _yes_ or _no_ but never something in between. When translated to Veretian, _bastard_ literally meant _born_ _out of wedlock_. It was not an insult.

When the sun was out he sat in the wooden benches of the training arena, watching. It was the Akielons he stared at, wrestling naked in the dirt, running leaps, and throwing spears. It was not the strongest man the one who’d often win, as Laurent had once thought, but the most determined. They were disciplined in their resilience; it was not skill but purpose that drove them. 

“I’ve got a present for you,” Auguste said one night after dinner. They were playing chess and Laurent was winning. “I forgot to give it to you earlier.”

“You’re only trying to distract me so you can cheat,” Laurent said but still took the package from Auguste’s hands with eagerness. He did not miss the way his brother re-arranged the board when he thought Laurent was not looking. 

It was a book. Thick and heavy, but fairly new. It did not look like the kind of book Father would have owned. 

“Where did you get this?”

Auguste rubbed the back of his neck. He looked… nervous. “I had it commissioned for you. It was originally written in a dialect of the south, so I had someone translate it to Veretian.” He watched Laurent thumb through it. “It’s about those kingdoms I told you of, the ones beyond the sea.”

They had not spoken of that night before. Laurent knew he’d hurt his brother more than Auguste let on, but he had not apologized for his words. Every time he thought of doing it, something stopped him. Foolishly, he’d been hoping Auguste would forget he had ever said them. 

Setting the book aside, Laurent stood up. The board trembled and Auguste’s king fell to the floor with a heavy thud. Laurent forced himself to look at the small figure carved out of dark wood, its face turned towards him. It felt ominous. Laurent thought: _that is what will happen if I do not go_. 

He did not give Auguste a chance to speak, throwing himself at his brother in a fierce hug. Auguste’s first reaction was to freeze—nowadays, Laurent did not seek out any physical comfort—but slowly he relaxed, shifting so he could hold Laurent back. 

“It’s only a book,” Auguste said, laughing against his hair. There was a sort of relief in his voice. It reminded Laurent of his own gratefulness, months back. “I was not sure you’d like it. You’re always so particular about your readings.”

“Thank you,” Laurent said into Auguste’s shirt. Then, more gently, “Thank you.”

They went back to playing. Laurent’s queen was not where he’d left it but he did not comment on it. Sometimes it felt as though Auguste did not cheat to beat him but to make it harder for Laurent to win. Like an exercise of sorts. The harder the game, the bigger the challenge. And Laurent always won, time after time. 

“You’ve beaten me again,” Auguste said as Laurent pocketed his king. 

Those words, spoken before a thousand times, somehow sounded different tonight. They were real, materialized. 

“I’ll let you win next time if it pleases you.”

Auguste studied his face. He laughed, and his laugh was like a thousand birds singing. “You will not. You like winning far too much for that. I believe I’ve created a monster.”

Laurent was opening his mouth to reply when a knock on the door stopped him. It sounded tentative. Timid. After so many months of having to endure his presence, Laurent knew it was not Jord on the other side of the door. Nor Lazar, who always forgot to knock and would barge in without announcing himself first. 

Auguste stood and walked towards the door, his hand raised in Laurent’s direction, asking him to make no sound. He looked calm and Laurent was surprised to see him reach for the silver letter opener before opening the door. 

“Damianos,” he said and hid his improvised weapon behind his back like a child trying to avoid a scolding. “I was not expecting you.”

Craning his neck, Laurent caught a glance of Damianos, standing very still and stupidly tense in front of Auguste.

 _Idiot_ , Laurent thought, _you’ll never convince him like that._

“I was wondering if we might speak,” Damianos said. “I, er. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

Auguste hesitated. He looked back at Laurent, who smiled and nodded, before opening the door the rest of the way. “Come in. My brother is—”

“—about to leave,” Laurent said. He stood and picked up his book. “It’s late and Jord must be tired. You know how irritable he can be when he does not get enough sleep.”

Damianos’s brown eyes followed him as he went. _Tomorrow_ , they seemed to say. _Tomorrow you will tell me._

“Goodnight,” Laurent said to Auguste. “Thank you for the book.”

He and Damianos traded places. The door closed behind Damianos with a soft click and laughter soon followed, although Laurent was not able to tell who it belonged to through the thick wood that now stood between them.

“Is this what you wanted?” Jord asked him as soon as Laurent turned to face him. “For them to get along?”

Laurent waved him off. “Why would I care about that?”

Jord’s eyebrows touched briefly. “Your Highness, you do realize the Prince of Akielos is not…”

“Is not _what_?” 

“He is almost your brother’s age,” Jord spoke carefully, something he did not do often. They had already started the way back to Laurent’s rooms but each step Jord took seemed strangely slow to Laurent. It was like he was trying to stretch whatever time together they had. “I don’t think—the King will not approve.”

Laurent stopped walking. “He is not my brother’s age. He’s nineteen, Auguste is almost six years older.”

“But you are thirteen, Your Highness.”

“Jord, sometimes I wonder—” He stopped himself. Replaying the conversation inside his head, Laurent said, “Surely you don’t think I want him.”

Jord’s blushing cheeks were the only response he got.

“What did you think we were plotting together?” Laurent asked. He had never felt more like laughing. “Our _courtship_?”

“It is said he has a type,” Jord answered defensively. He started walking again, forcing Laurent to follow. “And you’ve seen his brother’s wife. What was I to think?”

“Oh, Jord,” Laurent said. He had to clasp his hand over his mouth to keep from giggling like a girl. Soon enough his eyes prickled with tears. “Would you have come to the wedding? Worn a chiton, maybe?”

“Your Highness.”

“Would _I_ have worn a chiton?” Laurent asked and could not hold his laughter in any longer. He could not seem to stop cackling. “Oh, don’t—don’t be like that.”

Jord scowled. “Laurent.”

That only made Laurent laugh harder. “I can not—stop. You in a chiton, Jord.”

Jord said nothing.

“And Lazar,” Laurent went on. It was getting hard to breathe. “Lazar in a—”

“—chiton.” Jord sighed. It seemed he could not make it to Laurent’s rooms fast enough. “I think I get the joke, Your Highness.”

Wiping his tears away, Laurent said, “Jord, the day I marry a barbarian will be the day I die. God, I wish you were this funny all the time. You’d have made a fine jester had you not joined my brother’s guard.”

“Perhaps it’s not too late for me to try and become one,” Jord said dryly. “Or a wet nurse, given how much time I’m forced to spend around you.”

Laurent howled, laughter shaking his body again. “A wet nurse! Why, Jord, I did not know you had tits!”

*

Damianos was waiting for him when Laurent stepped out of the dining hall with Lazar. Jord had refused to escort him anywhere today, claiming he needed a rest from Laurent’s incessant jests. Lazar was much more talkative than Jord, still ripe with youth in a way the latter was not, and he liked to ask himself questions and answer them aloud. Laurent was barely able to eat his breakfast without sputtering; he could not get the images of Lazar in a flimsy barbarian outfit out of his head.

“Tell me what you meant that day,” Damianos said in Akielon. He held his hand up, shushing Laurent. “Yes, I’ve talked to your brother.”

“And?” Laurent demanded. “Did he agree?”

Damianos rolled his eyes. “I did not ask him. He would have said no. I need to gain his trust first or he won’t allow it.”

“You only have a few weeks left.”

“I’m aware,” Damianos said, annoyed. “But I’m working on it. Now it’s your turn.”

“Not here.”

“There’s no one around.”

“There’s always someone around,” Laurent said. He took a sharp turn to the left and both Damianos and Lazar followed him. Heading towards his rooms, he added, “Lazar will stay at the door like Jord did last time, but we’ll have to be even more careful than we were back then.”

 _Discreet_. That’s the word Laurent had wanted to use. It was Uncle’s word. 

“Why must we be so secretive?” Damianos huffed. He entered Laurent’s rooms with a blank expression; whatever crossed his mind was a mystery. Did he find them strange or familiar? Did he like them? “Do you distrust your guards so much?”

Laurent sat on the armchair by the window. He motioned for Damianos to sit on the bed. Or on the floor. “It’s not them I do not trust,” he said in a low voice.

“Must we whisper?” 

“I’ll whisper and you’ll listen,” Laurent snapped. It seemed like he could not mind his tongue when Damianos was around. “Or would you rather I screamed and warned Jokaste of our scheming?”

That got Damianos’s attention. He leaned forward on the bed and the look on his face was like hunger. “Scheming? Is that what we’re doing?”

“ _I_ am scheming. You are simply… here.” 

“You said I would die. My father, too.”

Laurent rubbed at his temple. He could feel a headache coming, a pressure building behind his eyes. It reminded him of the mornings after—

No. He would not let himself think of that, not in front of the barbarian. 

He forced himself to focus on Damianos’s hands. They did not look soft but calloused. When he moved them Laurent could picture him holding a sword. “There is bad blood between you and your brother,” he said simply. He had to be concise if he wished to be understood. “His wife wants to be Queen.”

Damianos’s hands became fists on his lap. “You do not know what you’re saying.”

“I know you shared her at some point,” Laurent said, looking into Damianos’s eyes. Damianos looked away. “In the end, she chose Kastor. Why?”

“I do not know. I am not her.”

“It was a rhetorical—” Laurent sighed. “Because he’s easier to control.”

“You do not know him, nor her. Nor me. How can you sit there and speak such filth of people you know nothing about?”

“I’ve been watching him,” Laurent continued, as though Damianos had not spoken. “He’s a slave to his own anger. Each day he grows more resentful than the one before. It is only a matter of time before…”

“Before what?” 

Laurent chose his words carefully. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

Damianos held his gaze. “He is my brother.”

 _Half-brother_ , Laurent thought. “As I’ve said before, Jokaste wants to be the Queen.”

“I’m the heir,” Damianos spat out. It was clearly a sensitive subject for him. “Had she truly wanted to reign she would have married me.”

Outside, Lazar was talking to himself. 

“Unless she knew you would not have made it to your coronation day.”

Damianos froze. He looked so out of place there, taking up most of Laurent’s bed, that it was hard to look away from him. He stuck out like a sore thumb, pulsing and angry. “No,” he said. “She would never—”

“Not her, you absolute fool. I’m talking about Kastor.”

Despite the fact that they were holding this conversation in Akielon, Damianos seemed confused. It did not surprise Laurent one bit. “But you said he was easy to control.”

“I believe she’s been trying to persuade him,” Laurent said hesitantly. This part was mere speculation, not even he could pretend to know what really went on inside her head. Such a snake she was. “If she wanted you dead, you would be already. The fact that you are still alive means Kastor listens to her, to some degree. And yet…”

“And yet?”

He did not want to say it, but he knew if he didn’t Damianos would leave and all his efforts would have been for nothing. “I do not believe she cares much for your father.”

For a long time, neither spoke. They sat quietly, listening to Lazar’s murmurs and avoiding each other’s eyes. 

Laurent itched to say more, to tempt Damianos with more secrets so he would be forced to keep up with his part of the deal, but he also knew that saying too much was never a good strategy. _All in good time, little one_. Laurent shivered.

“Why do you want to come with us to Ios, then?” Damianos asked him. It was not what Laurent had been expecting him to say. “If what you say is true… you will not be safe there.”

There were a thousand things he could say. Most of them were partly true, some of them were complete lies. Damianos seemed easy enough to fool, after all.

“With you and your father gone, Kastor will be King,” Laurent settled for. “As I’ve said before, I’ve been watching him. Surely even you must have noticed the way he speaks to my brother.” He wanted to bite the inside of his cheek; sometimes it helped him focus. “There will be a war. And I refuse to lose my brother to it.”

Damianos touched his stomach pensively. Laurent had seen him do that before when he thought no one was looking. His shirt covered the skin from view, yet Laurent did not need to see in order to know. Whatever hid beneath the layers of cloth was strong, it had a pull on Damianos. A poorly healed wound from the war, perhaps. 

“I do not trust you,” Damianos said. 

He really meant it, but Laurent was not worried. If he’d thought Laurent a spy or a traitor, he would not have come here alone. Or maybe he was just overconfident in his abilities. Damianos was, after all, three times Laurent’s size. 

“You’d be an idiot to trust me when I’ve done nothing yet to earn it. If I go to Ios…”

“Yes?”

“You’ll have the upper hand there. That is something you can trust. You’ll have your men with you, and I…” _I will not_. Laurent pushed through. He did not like how uncertain he’d sounded, how vulnerable. “You need me.”

There was the ghost of a smile on Damianos’s face. “You’re a child. Why would I need you? Nikandros is the only one whose counsel I value, and not once has he failed me. Why would I hear your voice over his?”

 _Because he’s thick as a cow_ , Laurent wanted to say. “Because he’s a good man. Good men rarely see the bad in others. My brother is like that, too.”

“And you’re not?” Damianos asked, hand stilling over his stomach. “A good man, I mean.”

“I am not a man yet,” Laurent said. 

“Yes, I can see that, but still. Should you not be concerned by this ability of yours to spot such taints in others?”

Laurent’s ears heard the unspoken words between them. “Speak clearly or leave. If you think me dangerous or unbalanced, say so. I will not be offended. It is not as though I care what you think of me.”

“Jokaste,” Damianos began and paused. “She has an informant here. Her little bird, she calls them. Someone who whispers secrets to her about everyone in the palace.”

“And?” 

“And she told me you tried to murder a child in the gardens. If that is true—”

“It is true,” Laurent replied easily. He’d meant what he said; Damianos’s opinion of him mattered very little in the great scheme of things. Laurent did not need to be liked but merely tolerated. “As it turns out, murder is not an ability I seem to possess. I advise you not to fret over it; if I could not kill a child I doubt I could kill you. However similar in intelligence you might be, physically you are fifty times stronger than the child I tried to drown.”

“In Akielos, children your age will not care for your status as Prince of Vere,” Damianos said. “You heard Jokaste. At thirteen, you’ll be treated as a man and expected to behave like one.”

Laurent tilted his head to the side. He squinted at the brashness of the sun. “Are you quite finished? Rest assured that the Akielon hatchlings will come to no harm.”

“It is not them I worry about.”

“How generous of you to be concerned for my safety.”

Damianos stood. The bed creaked as if relieved to be rid of his weight. “It is _my_ safety I’m concerned about. I doubt your brother’s wrath could easily be appeased if something happened to you while in Akielos.”

“Then I’ll be on my best behavior,” Laurent said and stood up too. “I’d hate for you to be whipped to death.”

Damianos snorted. “How generous of you to be concerned for my—”

“It is not you who I’m trying to spare the pain of a session on the cross,” Laurent interrupted. “Although it’d be quite the show, my ears would suffer greatly.”

“Your ears?” Damianos asked. Despite his muscles and height, he moved gracefully and had reached the door before Laurent did.

“You’d scream like a woman stuck in labor,” Laurent replied. He turned to Lazar, who’d shut his mouth as soon as he saw them come out. “Do not stop your babbling on my behalf, Lazar.”

“Your Highness,” Lazar said, blushing. His eyes skittered to Damianos. “Do you wish me to escort you to the east wing with your…”

“Friend,” Damianos offered. 

“No,” Laurent said to Lazar. “You and I are going to go hunting.”

Lazar frowned, shifting away from where he’d been resting against the doorway. “It is not hunting season, Your Highness. There are no boars this time of the year.”

“As if it’d make any difference if there were,” Damianos said. “A boar would kill your Prince as quickly as I a fly.”

 _I need him_ , Laurent told himself, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to remember why. 

“Then be glad it’s not a boar I intend to hunt,” he said swiftly, “but a bird.”

Lazar hesitated, asked, “Should I fetch you some arrows and a bow?”

Heavy footsteps were coming from Laurent’s right. He did not even have to turn to know it was Jord. The man liked to drag his feet as he walked sometimes, with the sole purpose of annoying Laurent. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Damianos was turning to leave.

“Wait,” he said and was more than pleased when Damianos stilled. Jord stood next to Lazar and gave Laurent a look full of warning. “My guard here has some questions to ask you, Damianos. Go on, Jord. Ask him.”

“Your Highness,” Jord said, murderous. 

Laurent bit his cheek and pushed the laughter down his throat one more time. “Ask him about the chitons, Jord.”

“Chitons?” Damianos asked, turning to face Jord. He was using his princely voice: polite and stiff. “They are tunics. I’m sure you’ve seen my men wearing them. In Akielos we scarcely wear pants.”

“Did you hear that, Jord?” Laurent asked, poking him on the arm with his index finger. Jord did not move a muscle, apparently not even breathing. “They don’t wear pants.”

Damianos looked confused. “I, uh. I could get you one if that is what you—”

At that Laurent lost it, bending at the waist with the force of his cackles. “Yes, _yes_. That is exactly what Jord wants. He—he—” 

But Laurent found he could speak no more. He was laughing too hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! I laughed terribly hard reading some of the comments you left on the last chapter, so thank you!  
> I started this story with only ten chapters in mind, but I've realized there's so much more I want to write about and ten chapters are simply not enough. I'm thinking around ten more chapters, but who knows? We'll see where this takes us. The quarantine won't be over for a while and I feel like this is a healthy way to stay grounded and creative! School is terrible, as usual, so I can not promise you any more daily updates, but I'm thinking along the lines of posting every two days (or if I'm too busy, every three days lol).  
> I will probably edit out this awfully long Author's note in a few days, but lastly, I wanted to ask you for a huge favor and let me know if I can follow any of you on Tumblr. I literally have never spoken to another human being about this trilogy and I can't seem to find anyone from this fandom ANYWHERE. Is it me? Is this fandom small? Please feel free to message me at thickenmyblood.tumblr.com to let me know where you're all hiding at!!! Please!! I am not above begging, clearly.  
> Thank you and stay safe!


	7. Six

**Six**

The King of Vere was unlike any ruler Damianos had ever known. For as long as he could remember, Damianos had always been surrounded by powerful men. It was not uncommon for Kings and Lords to visit Ios, bringing with them exotic pets and expensive gifts in hopes of gaining his father’s favor, and so Damianos had grown up watching them, listening to their buoyant speeches and sumptuous promises. He’d grown used to their scalding cruelty—the ravaging of young maidens, the slaying of the poor who rioted for food, the public punishments they inflicted on those who wronged them.

When Damianos was fifteen, he’d stood by his father and watched him strip a man of all his lands and rights. The man had protested and begged and, when he realized none of that would work, he’d spat on Theomedes’s face. His father had wiped his cheek and motioned for his sword to be brought to him.

One swift blow later, the man’s head was rolling on the ground.

 _Kings are not born_ , he’d said when Damianos asked him why he’d done it, _they are made_. It was Kastor who explained it to him some hours later. The man lost his head not because of their father’s temper, but because of his wish to remain on the throne.

“Power is a slimy creature,” Kastor had told him that night. They still spoke to each other unbiddenly back then. “To hold onto it one must be prepared to do whatever it takes. What Father did today was convince everyone watching that it’d be a terrible idea to try and take that power away from him.”

Still, Damianos had not understood. “But that man… He did not want Father’s throne. He only wanted his lands back.”

Kastor had laughed. There had been contempt in his voice when he spoke again, but Damianos had not yet learned to listen. “ _Today_ he wanted his lands. Tomorrow, the world.”

But it was hard to imagine a world where Auguste had not been born a King. It came to him that easily, without any effort. He ruled as naturally as fish swam and mortals breathed, the way the sun rose in the mornings and set again at night. Auguste said what he meant and disliked those who didn’t. He did not seem to know how to be cruel or envious or sly. When he spoke, Damianos was compelled to listen, the same way he’d be if it were his own father speaking. And yet Auguste was nothing like Theomedes.

He held power on the palm of his hand for everyone to see, almost carelessly. He did not seem afraid of anyone taking it from him, as Damianos knew his father was.

Looking at him, Damianos wondered whether his blood was red at all. If cut, would he even bleed? And if he did, why would his blood be anything but golden? A spear had missed his heart by mere luck and yet he did not clench his fist around power, trying to hold it captive while the struggling creature tried to squirm away. Auguste simply kept his hand relaxed, palm always facing the sun.

They’d settled in a routine of sorts. At night, when dinner was over and a considerable amount of time had passed—enough for The Little Brat to have gone back to his own rooms—Damianos would knock on Auguste’s door and share another cup of wine or mead with him.

Tonight Damianos arrived too early and was forced to wait until Auguste was done playing chess with his brother. Laurent won the game and left, making sure to only address Auguste when he said goodnight, but not before shooting Damianos a look so sharp it felt like an arrow. _Your time is running out_ , it read.

While he waited for Auguste to pour the mead, Damianos said, “You and your brother seem close.”

Auguste handed him a cup. He did not look particularly nervous, but Damianos noticed he had poured too much mead and the cup was close to overflowing. Damianos’s words had distracted him.

“As close as he allows us to be,” he said, reaching for his own drink.

Damianos knew nothing of ruling yet. His father was not too old, he’d hold the throne for many years to come, and being a Prince was not the same as being the King. He cared little for economical profits and commercial routes. If asked, he would not have been able to say the last time he’d joined his father in a meeting.

But brotherhood… That was something Damianos knew plenty of.

“I’ve noticed that he is not like other boys.”

Auguste kept silent.

Damianos tried again. “He is—”

“Annoyingly smart?” Auguste supplied. “Infuriatingly loyal to me? Or is weak the word you’re looking for? Your brother’s wife seems rather fond of it.”

Damianos was taken aback by the sudden sharpness in Auguste’s voice. One minute they had been talking as friends, and now… But Damianos knew he could not relent. He’d made a deal to at least try, and now he found himself desperate to keep his word. He did not want to give The Little Brat any reason to gloat, which he certainly would if Damianos was not able to convince Auguste. It had mutated from an unwanted task into a personal challenge without him noticing.

“Lonely,” Damianos said slowly. He watched Auguste’s knuckles go white around the cup and then pink again in the blink of an eye. “He seems lonely.”

“Laurent does not do well with other children,” Auguste said at last. It seemed to Damianos as though he was struggling to speak, almost like he was scared his brother would barge in and tell him off for speaking about him. “He finds them… simple-minded.”

So, in essence, stupid.

“I know you found my father’s offer unpleasant the other night,” Damianos said. It felt like he was drawing closer and closer to a flame. The warmth was not comforting, but almost painful. If he misspoke, Auguste would burn him alive. “But I do not know why.”

There was a full harvest moon outside. It was round and pale as bone and unfamiliar. Surely it could not be the same moon he’d spent his whole life staring at. Clouds gathered around it in ways Damianos had never seen before. Not for the first time, he found himself wishing he could hear the ocean and taste the salt in his mouth.

“He is the only family I have left,” Auguste said. He was looking at Damianos, head tilted and eyes assessing. For a moment, he looked just like Laurent. “I could not bear to see him go.”

Damianos shifted in his seat. He’d never quite known how to deal with other people’s grief. “I’m sorry, I did not know your uncle had passed.”

Something strange passed through Auguste’s face. Surprise, perhaps. It was gone a second later. “He hasn’t,” Auguste said in a quiet voice. “Not yet, at least.”

 _It was all the Prince’s fault_ , Jokaste had said. Damianos opened his mouth to ask, but the expression on Auguste’s face stopped him.

Instead, he said, “It might be a good idea for him to go. His Akielon is good, but it could be better. It certainly is not strong enough to land him a place in your council in the future. Maybe there he could improve.”

“Enough,” Auguste said. His voice did not sound like his own, but much older. “I know you and my brother are up to something.”

“Your Majes—”

“I would not lie to me if I were you, Damianos. Least of all about this. My brother’s guards have told me you two talk from time to time.”

“We do,” Damianos admitted. There was no point in lying, not if Auguste already knew the truth. Or some of it, at least.

“In Akielon.”

Damianos felt his skin heat up. “He’s practicing,” he lied and then realized he was lying to a King. The beheaded man from his nightmares came back to him, the memory as clear as if it had happened mere minutes ago. Another thought, one that made him sick as well as calm, rose inside him like the tide: _he was a man and I am a Prince_. “Some verbs are giving him trouble.”

Whether or not Auguste believed him, it was impossible to know. “He will not go and this is my final word. On my brother’s behalf, I am sorry. Whatever he’s holding against you… You must not resent him. I’m afraid he’s picked up some nasty habits involving secrecy.”

Head whirring, Damianos said, “He’s not forcing me to do this. I come here out of my own free will.”

Another lie.

“Even if I allowed it, he would never go with you,” Auguste said. He did not say it cruelly or mockingly; he was being honest. Guilt made Damianos’s stomach drop. “He’d rather go to Patras, I believe.”

“He wants to come,” Damianos’s mouth said before his brain could think it through. There was something about Auguste’s honesty that made Damianos want to be honest, too. “Perhaps if one of your men came with him—”

“I’ve seen the pets you take with you to your rooms,” he said, cutting Damianos off again. After a moment, Auguste added, “I’ve met your brother’s wife.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

Auguste gave him a sharp laugh. “Let us speak like men, Damianos. You claim my brother wants to leave his home, the only place he’s ever lived in, to go to Akielos with you. And you claim to have come here to speak with me willingly.”

“But what does any of that have to do with Jokaste?”

“You are your father’s only heir. No matter how much he… _appreciates_ your brother, he won’t ever let him rule in your place.” Auguste paused and took a sip of his mead. Damianos could not look away from him, even this tense and taut he looked beautiful. “When your father dies, you’ll be the King. Kings need heirs.”

Damianos did not say anything. He could not see the point Auguste was trying to make.

Auguste must have noticed his confusion, for he said, “It’s clearly not marriage you’re after, Damianos. In case it has slipped your mind, my brother has no womb.”

All friendliness had abandoned Auguste’s face. They were no longer just talking and bonding, something had shifted between them and Damianos could feel the danger of it. When Auguste lowered his eyes, Damianos followed his gaze and found himself staring at the silver letter opener on the table. The air around them changed, becoming heavier, and Damianos felt his pulse quicken.

 _Oh_. “No,” Damianos said quickly. “No, no. I’m not— _He_ ’s not—” He paused to breathe and swallow and think. Horrified, he half-said, half-shrieked, “He’s a child.”

“I thought thirteen-year-olds were considered men in your country,” Auguste said. He did not stammer or stutter, his words precise and practiced. _How long_ , Damianos wondered wildly, _has he been thinking I want to bed his brother?_ “And you certainly seem to like his type. Blonde, young, pretty.”

Damianos recoiled, feeling sick. “Not that young. Never. I’d never— _No_.”

Instead of softening, Auguste’s face seemed to harden even further. He looked like he was made out of stone. “Is it Kastor, then? Has he gotten bored of his delightful wife already?”

“My brother is no boy-lover,” Damianos spat out. He was starting to forget exactly who he was talking to—one did not simply snap at the King, no matter how nice said King was—and the mention of his brother’s name tied to such accusations made it even harder for him to remember. “In Akielos, we do not fuck children. No matter how blonde or pretty they are.”

Damianos waited for Auguste to respond, angrily and self-righteously, that in Vere they did not do such things either. But the answer he was expecting never came.

“He will not go,” he said simply. “I like you, Damianos, I really do. I think you’re an honest man and you’ll be a just King when your time to rule comes. Let us be friends and honor the alliance between our kingdoms.” Auguste reached out for the letter opener. He pretended to examine it. “I’m sure my brother appreciates your tutoring, but I do not appreciate being told how to handle him. For your own sake, I advise you not to speak of these matters again.”

Something told Damianos he should let things rest. He’d done what he could and kept his part of the deal. This was the King of Vere, his father’s most powerful ally, and Damianos should apologize for upsetting him and take his leave. It was not too late to find himself a pretty pet to spend the night with after leaving here.

He soon found he could do none of those things.

“There’s an old saying in my country,” Damianos said. Then, in Akielon, he added, “ _To water excessively is to kill._ ”

There was a flash of silver. After blinking a couple of times, Damianos realized Auguste had stabbed the dark wooden table with the letter opener, which now stood upright as if suspended on the air in an unnatural position. The table did not look old and the wood had felt sturdy under Damianos’s fingertips, both signs that there’d been a lot of force behind Auguste’s movement.

In Akielon, a bit more broken than Laurent’s, Auguste said, “Then it’s a good thing my brother is not a plant.”

Damianos heard the dismissal in his voice. This time he did not ignore it.

*

Kastor did not knock. He never had, back home, and so Damianos was not surprised to find that his brother’s bad habit had followed him all the way to Arles. It was his way of being in control—a knock was equal parts politeness and warning—and Damianos could not bring himself to hate Kastor for it. He too liked to feel in control sometimes.

“Brother,” Damianos said in greeting. He’d been lying in bed all morning, going through last night’s conversation with Auguste in his head, but he sat up when he noticed Kastor lounging by the door.

“Damianos,” Kastor replied.

Never had the sound of his own name hurt so badly.

Ever since his conversation with Laurent, Damianos felt as though a veil had been lifted off and a new world was presenting itself to him. _I’ve been watching him_ , The Little Brat had said. And so Damianos had started watching Kastor, too.

It was in the little things. As he’d done now, he refused to call Damianos his brother. He would go very still and very silent whenever their father spoke. Sometimes, it seemed like the only thing keeping him together was Jokaste’s arms around him.

According to Laurent, Damianos owed Jokaste his life. It would have been fairly easy to imagine her whispering to Kastor that he could not murder his own brother, that Damianos was—no, _had been_ —important to her. Yet it felt like daydreaming, like a fantasy of sorts. Damianos found easier to believe that his brother hated him than that Jokaste cared for him at all.

“Father wants you to come to the meeting,” Kastor said. He had not moved at all from his spot on the doorway but the distance between them felt much wider. “He says it’s important.”

It was clear in the way Kastor spoke that he disliked acting as their father’s messenger as much as he disliked talking to Damianos. He turned to leave, feet already shuffling forward, when Damianos’s voice stopped him.

“Brother,” Damianos said again. If Kastor would not say it, then he would. _Brother, brother, brother_ , he chanted inside his head. It felt like a prayer. “Let us go together.”

Kastor turned his head to look at him. “As you prefer.”

They crossed the palace in complete silence. Every time Damianos wanted to speak he found he could not. This was not Ios. There were no clumsy serving boys to laugh at, which had been Kastor’s favorite thing until recently, and now that Kastor had married Jokaste he did not take any pets. Damianos realized the only thing they shared was their father’s blood.

Had it always been this way? Had Damianos simply failed to notice? The scar on his stomach tingled, as it usually did when he thought of Kastor. He could remember the blood seeping through his fingers as he held his stomach, the frantic beat of his heart, and Kastor’s face above his. His memory failed him. Had Kastor been the one to call for help? Had he wept?

And if he had, was it all just for the sake of appearances?

As they entered the council room, Damianos thought of those endless months they had both spent in the summer palace. He’d been a child then, even younger than Laurent, and Kastor had played with him. Swimming, riding, sparring. They had been brothers there.

“Where is King Auguste?” Kastor asked as soon as they had both taken a seat. “He should be here already.”

Their father made a grunting noise. Around him, men were beginning to grow restless. When Auguste entered the room a few moments later, everyone went quiet. It was unlike him to be late. Surprisingly, he did not apologize for it.

“Your Majesty,” an Ambassador said. “Are you unwell? I’ve heard there is a new physician in the palace. Perhaps we should call off this meeting.”

Auguste gave the man a tight smile. “There is,” he said, “but he has not come to examine me. Now, let us begin. Rumors and gossip are, unfortunately, not why we’re gathered here today.”

Gigantic maps were spread over the table. Men stood and argued heatedly about mining and agriculture. One man’s solution was another man’s ruin. They all pointed at the maps, at the tiny boats and flags pinned to them, and debated on and on. All except for Damianos. He was too busy staring at Kastor to notice anything else around him.

An hour had passed when they were interrupted. The door creaked as a man opened it, giving away his presence. The urgency in his voice was not the only telltale sign that he was in a hurry. He too, like Kastor, had forgotten to knock.

It was Lazar, one of The Little Brat’s guards. “Your Majesty,” he said. “There is a—”

Auguste was already on his feet before he had finished speaking. “I am terribly sorry,” he said to everyone in the room. They all gaped at him, startled. Never in their whole stay had Auguste left a meeting early. “We’ll continue tomorrow. If you’ll excuse me.”

“It’s the Prince,” Damianos heard one councilor whisper to another once Auguste had gone. “It’s always the Prince causing trouble around here.”

*

Against his better judgment, Damianos went to the west wing after dinner that night. Both the King and the Prince had been absent and rumors were starting to spread.

Damianos had asked Jokaste about it as they ate. “Has your little bird told you what is happening?”

Jokaste’s smile had soured. She’d shaken her head in that delicate way of hers, said, “Someone has cut off his wings, I’m afraid. He won’t sing again, at least not for me.”

Auguste’s door was locked. Damianos knocked once, twice, and waited. No matter how much he strained his ears he could not hear anything through the thick wooden door.

A moment passed and then another. Impolite as it was, he knocked again.

There was no answer.

*

Jord was not amused in the slightest by Damianos’s gift. He held the chiton away from his body like it was some filthy rag Damianos had stoled from the kitchen. Damianos could not understand the man’s aversion. Hadn’t The Little Brat said he wanted one, last time? It was clean and brand new. All that was missing was a fastener or a pin.

“Is the Prince in his rooms?” Damianos asked. He was starting to regret not bringing Nikandros along. Clearly his peace offering had not been well received. “He has not been attending any meals.”

Jord’s stoic face gave nothing away. “His Highness is indisposed.”

That was what Auguste had said to his father, too. Damianos had tried to approach him several times in the last few days, but Auguste was always busy. He never answered to Damianos’s insistent knocking and would leave the second a meeting was over. He barely shared meals with them, and when he did it was like he orchestrated the conversation to his own liking, steering it away from anything related to his brother.

When Damianos’s father had asked after the Prince’s health, Auguste had been very careful with his response. _I’m afraid he’s indisposed_ , he had said and would explain no further. But rumors spread like wildfire through the palace and soon even the pets Damianos called to his rooms were whispering about the Prince’s condition. It was no secret that the King had summoned a physician from Patras, but no one knew the reason. The Prince had not looked sick—at least, not to Damianos—and no harm had come upon him that anyone knew about.

“Is he sick?” Damianos asked Jord. He did not care much about the child but they _had_ made a deal, and he felt strange not knowing what was really going on. Arles was looking more and more like a snake pit with each day that passed. “Perhaps—”

“Damianos,” Auguste said.

Damianos had been so distracted by his own thoughts he had not heard him approach. Disguising his surprise by shuffling his feet, he turned to face the King. “Your Majesty.”

Auguste smiled. There was a slight slouch to his shoulders as if something heavy was weighing down on him. “I’d rather you did not call me that. Your brother certainly doesn’t.”

It was true. When Kastor spoke to him, he always made sure to use Auguste’s given name.

_Surely even you must have noticed the way he speaks to my brother._

Damianos pushed the thought away. “I’ve come to see your brother,” he said. “His guard tells me he is indisposed, but I was hoping I’d be able to speak to him for a moment.”

Auguste was as stoic as Jord in his response. “Laurent is unwell. I am sure he’d appreciate your visit, but he’s in no condition to practice his Akielon right now.”

“That is not why I—”

A loud thundering sound cut him off. It had come from inside the Prince’s rooms, but neither Jord nor Auguste seemed surprised by it. There was a pause during which the three of them stood in the hall, listening and waiting, but the sound did not come again.

“Lazar will relieve you of your duty when he’s back from the stables,” Auguste said, looking at Jord. “You should get some rest.”

Jord set his jaw. “I don’t think—”

“I’ll stay until he comes,” Auguste said. He tilted his head to the side, gesturing for the man to take his leave. “Prince Damianos will keep me company while I wait.”

“Your Majesty,” Jord said and walked away, sweeping the floor with the chiton Damianos had gifted him.

Auguste leaned his back against the closed door. When his blue eyes landed on Damianos, he smiled again. “You’re free to leave if you want. I think I can handle some minutes of waiting on my own.”

Damianos shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. This was their first conversation since Auguste had accused him of trying to bed his brother, and Damianos did not wish to anger him again. “I could go and find Lazar for you.”

Heavy-lidded, Auguste said, “Lazar does not need finding. As I told Jord, he’s in the stables with one of your men.” He paused as if thinking. “How do you reckon that works? Lazar does not speak your language.”

 _And Pallas does not speak Veretian_ , Damianos thought. “I suppose there is not a lot of talking involved.”

“Ah, yes. Of course.”

Damianos took a moment to inspect the King. His loose shirt looked wrinkled and the laces of his vest had been put through the wrong hoops, but he did not look like a man who’d been recently pleasured. There was a weariness about him that seemed to run bone-deep. Damianos had not thought of it before, but perhaps Auguste had lied when said the physician from Patras was not here for him. He certainly looked sick.

“You were right,” Auguste said. Even though he’d spoken in a soft voice, Damianos startled at the sound. “He is lonely here.”

The sound of voices coming from inside Laurent’s rooms distracted Damianos. They were faint and muffled by the wall and the thick door, but he could still hear them. He didn’t know what they were saying or who they belonged to, only that there were two of them. There was another loud noise. Then, silence.

“It was not my place to say that,” Damianos said. “I apologize.”

Auguste waved a hand dismissively. “You were being honest,” he said. “Few others would have dared, in your place. Apparently, being the King means no one wants to contradict you.”

Damianos’s mouth, always faster than his brain, said, “Perhaps they’re afraid you’ll stab them to death with a paperknife.” Realizing what he’d just said, Damianos panicked. “I didn’t mean—I—”

Auguste laughed and Damianos could do little but stare. The King laughed just like his brother did. The memory of The Little Brat laughing outside this very room was still burned into Damianos’s memory. It had been so strange to watch him act like the child he was, poking fun at his own guard for being interested in another culture, that Damianos had found it hard to forget the scene.

Both brothers closed their eyes as they laughed. They looked unguarded and strangely beckoning as if they were inviting one to laugh along with them. Damianos wondered if he and Kastor had the same laugh. After a second he dismissed the thought completely; Kastor did not even smile nowadays.

“I must not have done a good enough job at threatening you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here, still trying to speak to my brother.”

“You never said I had to stop tutoring him,” Damianos said defensively.

With a tilt of his head, Auguste replied, “Didn’t you say you were _not_ here for Laurent’s Akielon lesson?”

“I came as a friend.” _Of yours_ , he wanted to add. Damianos was not friends with the child, nor did he want to be, but saying so would probably send Auguste into a foul mood again. Feeling bold, Damianos asked, “Is he truly unwell?”

“Yes.”

“Is it treatable?”

Auguste regarded him for a moment. “I believe so, yes.”

“Is it—”

“He’s not ill,” Auguste cut him off, not unpleasantly. “It’s not a physical condition.”

Damianos frowned. He’d thought conditions always affected the body. If not the flesh, then what else could fester?

“Your Majesty,” Lazar said. He was out of breath as if he’d been running or… Damianos looked away from him. The flush of Lazar’s face was making him uncomfortable. “I did not know you were waiting. I thought Jord—”

“All is well,” Auguste said. As if he’d heard himself saying something horrible, he blanched. He swayed away from the door, less than gracefully, and put a hand on the wall to steady himself. “Bring him to my rooms once they’re done in there,” he told Lazar. Once more his face was devoid of emotion.

Lazar did not even try to hide his doubts. “And if he refuses again?”

 _Again_.

“You bring him anyways,” Auguste said. “If he’s too much for you to handle, send for Jord. He’s carried him over his shoulder before, I believe.”

Damianos cleared his throat. It felt like he had not been breathing, too busy watching them talk. “I could escort him there if you’d like.”

Auguste and Lazar shared a look. “That won’t be necessary,” Auguste finally said. “Thank you, Damianos, but I’m certain Lazar will see to it.”

“I should go,” Damianos said but did not move. He waited, silently hoping Auguste would stop him and explain what was really happening with his brother, but no one said anything. “I’ll see you at dinner, then.”

“Maybe not,” Auguste said. He was trying to smile, Damianos could tell by the slight curling of his lips. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to sit through another meal with Guion.”

Despite himself, Damianos laughed. “It’s good to be King.”

“Yes,” Auguste replied. His mind seemed to be somewhere else already. “I suppose it is.”

Knowing Nikandros was probably still training, Damianos decided to go back to the east wing and wait for him there. He did not wait for Auguste to dismiss him again, turning around, he headed towards the gardens. It was a nice day—not as warm or as sunny as Damianos would have liked, but nice nonetheless—and he wished to be away from everyone and everything for a while.

He was about to turn left past the roses so he could avoid the ugly statue he had grown to hate when something collided against his front. Damianos looked down, blinked, and realized the child had run into him with so much force he’d been knocked to the ground.

Damianos stared at him. He was sitting on the dirt and showed no intention of getting up any time soon. “All right?” he asked.

The child stared back at him. There was a purple bruise blooming on his right cheek. It was small, the type of wound Akielon children sported all the time from wrestling and fighting. Yet Damianos knew there were no Akielon children here.

“Your Highness,” the boy said.

To Damianos, it almost seemed like he was sneering. He waited for an apology that did not come. Were all Veretian children brats?

The boy _was_ Veretian. His skin was too fair, his eyes too green. He was not wearing the finest set of clothes Damianos had ever seen and his laces were not golden or silver. He wore no leather boots. He might as well be a stable boy, for all Damianos knew. He could not be older than thirteen.

He peeked over Damianos’s shoulder, most likely trying to figure out where he had come from. His voice was steady when he spoke, sneer still in place. “Do you come from the Prince’s chambers, Your Highness?”

“Yes,” Damianos said. He had never seen this boy before, but surely if he was the same age as Auguste’s brother and just as arrogant, they ought to be friends. “He’s in no shape to play with you today, though. He’s unwell.”

Damianos could not imagine the Prince of Vere playing with anyone, let alone this scruffy boy, but this was the only child he had seen in the palace, so perhaps they were friends out of pure necessity.

The boy made a retching sound. “I’d rather slit my wrists than play with him,” he said. After a pause, as if remembering who he was speaking to, he added, “Your Highness.”

Damianos could feel himself beginning to smile. _Me too,_ he thought.

*

Later that night a firm knocking on his door pulled Damianos away from the bed _and_ the two pets that were already lying in it. He slipped on his chiton and yanked the door open, ready to bite the head off of whoever was standing on the other side. He’d specifically told Nikandros he did not want to be interrupted tonight, not when he had such good company. He’d thought he had made himself very clear, yet apparently Nik had not been listening very carefully.

“Unless you plan on joining us, you—”

The words died in his mouth, tongue going flat in his mouth like a pressed flower in a book. Even swallowing seemed like an impossible task.

“He’ll go,” Auguste said in a strange voice. He looked… “Laurent will go with you.”

Damianos’s brain was slow from all the wine he’d had during dinner and the three cups of mead he’d shared with the pets. He did not know what to say, so he nodded. When Auguste turned and left, stalked by two guards Damianos had never seen before, he thought nothing of it. His mind was on other things and he was tired of the Veretians’ twisted way of thinking.

“That was quick,” the brown-eyed pet said as Damianos crawled back into bed.

“Yes,” Damianos said. The other pet was already climbing on top of him, straddling his hips to lower himself on Damianos’s cock. “Yes,” he said again. And again when the brown-eyed pet leaned down to kiss him, open-mouthed and hungry.

And again, hours later, when they asked him if he wanted them to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! Thank you all for your blog recommendations and for the amazing comments you left on the last chapter. Now, what we all want to know:  
> \- I'll post Chapter seven on Saturday!   
> The next chapter will be the start of a whole new part of the story, so I hope you'll enjoy that second verse as much as you enjoyed reading the first. We can't stay in Vere for another thirteen chapters, can we?   
> It might seem like nothing's happening but trust me, stuff is going on. They'll get there. They will, just... Give me 60.000 more words and you'll see lol.  
> Again, thank you so much for your kindness! Please stay safe and take care of yourselves xx


	8. Seven

**Seven**

The ship was called _The Empress_.

Laurent hated the name, the ship, the sailors, and of course, the Akielons. He had known he would hate all of those things before he had even set foot on the deck of the ship, but what genuinely surprised him was his visceral hatred towards the sea. Auguste had promised Laurent he’d like it, that the waves were beautiful and the sun made the water look like it was made of sapphires. He had said the air felt cleaner, lighter, and that if Laurent breathed in through his mouth he would be able to taste the salt on his tongue. Yet Laurent felt sick and nauseous and _drained_. He did not like the sea or the moon or the breeze. Auguste had lied.

He spent the whole journey to Ios lying in his small bed, throwing up into a bucket and sweating through the sheets. The only bright side to his anguish was that he did not have to speak to anyone but the Akielon servant that brought him food, which he could not keep down, and water. Damianos did not bother him—why would he, when it was so clear to both of them they were not friends?—and neither did the rest of the royal family. 

At night, watching the moon through his narrow window, Laurent could think of nothing else but the home he was leaving behind. He’d refused to cry when he said his goodbye to Jord, making sure to tease him mercilessly about his new title. _Lord Jord of the Broken Legs_ , Laurent had called him, and Jord had not smiled, not one bit. Lazar had been nowhere to be found, too busy saying his own goodbyes to the Akielon soldier he was so obviously fucking in the stables every night. And Auguste—

Laurent could not bear to think of his brother.

“You’ll be there before you know it,” Auguste had said back at the port. He had been watching Laurent’s face, looking out for any signs of regret and indecision. “And when you do, I will have sent you at least three letters.”

_I was wrong, I don’t want to go_ , Laurent had thought. “Take care of Jord for me,” he’d said. “Make sure…” His voice had betrayed him. “Make sure he gets enough sleep.”

And then Auguste had stood there, waiting.

Laurent could not bear to remember his brother’s face, the way it had fallen when Laurent had sidestepped his hug and walked to the ship alone. The memory still came to him at night, along with all the other things Laurent did not want to think about, did not want to name, and every time he closed his eyes and saw Auguste’s face he thought he would sick up his own heart.

He was glad, in a way, to be ill. It felt like a punishment of sorts, something Laurent could be sure he deserved. Sometimes, the bile in his mouth tasted like atonement.

*

“I’ll carry him,” Damianos said from the doorway. It was the first time he had come to see Laurent since the journey had begun, which could only mean they had arrived. “Has he been drinking water, at least?”

The slave seemed uncertain. He looked at Laurent as if asking him for help, but Laurent could not bring himself to speak. “I believe he has, Exalted,” he said at last.

Laurent could have struggled—he still had _some_ fight left in him—but he did not see the point. Someone would have to carry him, that much was clear, because there was no way he could stand up on his own and leave the ship on his own two feet. Perhaps he could crawl his way to the deck, but given the cliffs that surrounded the palace it was only a matter of time before someone else had to step in and help him.

“Attend me,” Laurent said, looking straight at Damianos. He might as well make things hard for the barbarian. At least that way he would not be the only one who was miserable.

The slave hesitated.

Damianos laughed. “Go. This one’s too much for you to handle.”

Unlike Jord, Damianos did not throw Laurent over his shoulder. He helped him stand and then turned around. Confused, Laurent said nothing. After a moment Damianos turned again to face him. He looked amused, something Laurent did not like.

“What do you want me to do?” Laurent snapped. His voice sounded wrong, even to his own ears. How long had he gone without speaking? “Why are you turning around? Stop laughing, you—”

“Just hop on,” Damianos said. “I have not had breakfast yet and I’d like to get home before the sun sets.” Then, more patiently, “Put your arms around my neck and your legs around my waist.”

Laurent did not want to do it. He stalled for another minute, trying to come up with another idea, but his brain was so tired he could not think of anything. Hesitantly, he climbed on Damianos’s back and, for good measure, gave the brute’s neck a squeeze.

“Don’t,” Damianos warned him. He grabbed the back of Laurent’s thighs to hold him in place before he started walking. His hands were so warm Laurent could feel them through his pants. “If you feel like you’ll be sick let me know and I’ll stop.”

Laurent could not keep his head up. Resting his clammy cheek on Damianos’s shoulder, he said, “ _You_ make me sick.”

By the time they were off the ship, Laurent knew he could not stomach to ride a horse. The sunlight hurt and so did the wind, and Laurent could taste the salt in his mouth, which was only making him want to retch more. He did not want to ride with anyone but if he fainted and fell off his horse there was a big chance he would die. It was not his fear of death that made him stay silent as Damianos lowered him on the saddle and mounted behind him, but the fear that it would all have been for nothing.

“Lean back,” Damianos said. He must have felt how stiff Laurent was, how reluctant to be touched. “You can sleep until we get there. I won’t let you fall.”

Laurent considered his options. Damianos’s chest was already touching his back and the barbarian had his hand on Laurent’s hip, steadying him. What more could it hurt to lean back against him and close his eyes? His dignity was long gone anyways.

“If I fall…” Laurent started. He did not finish. _I’ll have you flogged_ , he’d been about to say. But Damianos was not Jord and this place was not Arles. Here, Laurent was nothing but a foreign Prince. If anything, Akielons could flog _him_.

“You won’t,” Damianos said. He sounded irritated. “Your stiffness is scaring the horse.”

Laurent leaned back. Damianos’s chest was broad and barely covered by his chiton. Had he had the strength, Laurent would have made fun of him for it. Was he so poor he could not afford clothes that fit him?

“Your face is scaring the horse.”

Damianos snorted and his chest vibrated against Laurent’s back. “The horse can’t see my face.”

Laurent could not see Damianos’s face either. He had already closed his eyes, trying to forget that with every second that passed he was getting farther away from Vere. “He can still feel it.”

Time melted away. There were noises all around him—the neighing of the horses, the occasional shout of an order, the crashing of the waves—but soon enough they too faded away, like a candle blown out, and silence reigned once more.

The moon in his dream was Vere’s. It was a white pearl, round and bright and perfect. It followed him as he walked down the gardens, past the fountain, and into the main hall. Laurent could taste the wine in the back of his throat as if he had just drunk some. The aftertaste was sweet, almost like honey, and so Laurent knew it was Uncle’s wine he had been drinking. Uncle always had the sweetest wines.

There was no one but Laurent in the palace, which could only mean it was late and they were all in their rooms. How much time had passed since dinner? Laurent could not remember. Something must have distracted him from going to Uncle’s rooms and now it was late, even the moon seemed to say so. His mouth did not taste as sweet anymore. Uncle was probably waiting, and if there was something Uncle hated it was—

“—have him.”

Laurent startled awake, blinking furiously and feeling beads of cold sweat running down his back. Everything was white and bright and tilted. He was falling, the ground waiting for him, and then he was not.

“Easy there,” Damianos said. His hands were on Laurent’s shoulders.

“It does not look like you have him,” another voice said. _Nikandros_ , Laurent thought.

Laurent did not care about falling off the horse. He wanted Damianos’s hands off him. “Let go,” he said roughly, not caring who was listening.

Damianos removed his hands. He was standing by the horse, no longer on it, and Nikandros was next to him. They looked like brothers.

“It’s a short walk to the palace,” Damianos said. “Do you think you can manage?”

“He does not look well,” Nikandros said, as though it was him Damianos had asked the question. “Perhaps you should—”

“I can walk,” Laurent snapped. He could not control his voice or posture. Everything felt wrong. “Just… help me down.”

When his feet touched the ground, Laurent forced himself not to sway. He got rid of the slouch of his shoulders and the wobbliness of his knees. Overly aware of Nikandros and Damianos’s eyes on him, Laurent took a step forward.

The palace was only a short distance away. Even from where he was standing Laurent could see it was nothing like what he’d been expecting. It was white as the moon in his dream had been. _Jord would have liked it_ , Laurent thought randomly. There was nothing barbaric about it, nothing to be ridiculed.

Despite his best efforts, he stumbled.

Damianos shifted closer but did not touch him. “So,” he said, “Do you think you can stomach another ride on my back? I am yet to have breakfast.”

“No.”

Damianos shrugged. “All right. Nikandros will walk with you then.”

Nikandros, who was several steps ahead of them, stopped. “I don’t—”

“You ate two apples while I carried The Little Brat around,” Damianos said. “It’s only fair.”

“Who,” Laurent asked, taking another step, “is _The Little Brat_?”

Damianos turned his back on Laurent and crouched down. “If you let me carry you, I’ll tell you all about him.”

On his last night at Arles, Laurent had made a lot of promises to himself. He would not cry, he would not let Kastor start any trouble, and most importantly, he himself would not start anything. His brother’s life depended on the alliance between Vere and Akielos, and Laurent would not do anything to jeopardize the peace between the two kingdoms.

Breaking his own promise, Laurent kicked Damianos’s oversized calf as hard as he could, which admittedly was not very hard, and watched him shout out in pain. If a war was started over this attack, then Laurent did not care one bit.

It was worth it to see Damianos on his knees again.

*

The walls of his new rooms were white and so was the ceiling above his head. The east side was nothing but a huge window carved into rock and marble, letting in the sun as well as the wind. With Autumn coming, swift and uncaring, Laurent could not see why they had chosen this place for him to stay in. Perhaps they wished him to freeze to death.

The bed was different than the one he slept in back home. It was not a pallet, as he had half-expected, but a real bed. It did not creak when Laurent let himself fall on it, the way his old bed sometimes did. He’d always despised that sound, complaining about it to Jord whenever the opportunity arose, and now Laurent missed it. When would he be able to complain about such things again?

He had never felt more like a child than he did now, throwing a tantrum over the lack of noise his bed made. But it wasn’t the bed, not really, that made Laurent feel naive. It was not even the fact that he had had to be carried like a babe out of _The Empress_ and then to the palace. He could not have avoided that even if he’d tried, not in his current state and on an empty stomach.

What made him feel like a boy was his own foolishness. He had not expected to miss Arles as much as he did. He had not expected it to hurt this badly.

_The most powerful lies are the ones we tell ourselves,_ the old man had said. Laurent had not known what to say back. He had been too angry to think properly, too out of control.

Now there was nothing to do but think. Here, in this palace made of cold white stone, Laurent’s mind was already starting to stretch out of a long stupor. Here, there were still secrets to be uncovered and lies to be untangled from the truth. No matter how childish he felt, Laurent could not let himself be an actual child, not here. Maybe not ever again.

The sun was high in the sky, Laurent could see it perfectly from the bed. He rolled over on his stomach, buried his head under one of the pillows, and tried to sleep. If he was lucky, he might be able to return to the dream he’d been having earlier.

*

Kastor was bolder here. Men were constantly around him, like flies on a dead body, soaking up every word that came out of his mouth. It was worse than Laurent had thought, he had not expected him to be so powerful here, to have so many allies and guards at his service. Kastor did not walk anywhere alone, always with Jokaste or his lackeys, and even when he sat by himself in the throne room he looked unapproachable.

Damianos, on the other hand, spent his days idly. When he was not swimming and riding with Nikandros he was making himself busy with women. King Theomedes did not seem to disapprove of this, not as long as Kastor attended the meetings Damianos could not be bothered to go to.

Only two days had passed since their return to Ios when Laurent barged into Damianos’s rooms. He had no guards of his own here except for Pallas, who Damianos had commanded to follow Laurent around. But Pallas was not too concerned for Laurent’s safety and, like most people, he was not too fond of him either. It was easy, then, for Laurent to roam the palace as he pleased, always watchful and silent as a ghost, and it made it even easier for him to ambush Damianos.

“You need to start behaving like a Prince,” Laurent said, skipping any greetings and idle chat. Unlocking the door had been easy—a trick that only required a malleable barrette—and he walked in making sure to keep his eyes away from the bed. He’d heard moaning when he was outside, but Damianos had bigger problems to worry about than chasing his own pleasure.

“Get out,” Damianos said, throwing a sheet over himself and the girl he was lying with. She was blonde, blonder than Laurent. _Chamomile_ , Laurent thought. That was what she probably had been using to dye her hair. “Where’s Pallas? I told him to watch you.”

Laurent walked to the window. It was just as big and wide and impractical as the one in his rooms. The barbarians truly loved the sea, it seemed. They could not bear to be so close to it and not see it. Just looking at the white foam and the curling waves made Laurent’s stomach flip over.

“He got bored,” Laurent said, forcing himself to stare at the sand. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the girl was already slipping a tunic over her head. Damianos did not try to stop her. “It has been two days.”

“You seem better,” Damianos answered. The door creaked open and then closed again. The girl had left. “If you’re bored already, I suggest you find yourself something to do that does not involve bothering me.” After a pause, he added, “Or Nikandros.”

“You need to start behaving like a Prince,” Laurent repeated.

“And how does a Prince behave?”

Laurent turned to watch him. He was naked except for the sheet that pooled around his waist. When he noticed Laurent’s eyes on him he shifted, pulling at the sheet to cover more of his body. The midday sun made his skin glow strangely, reminding Laurent of toasted almonds. Had he not been such a fool, Damianos would have been beautiful.

“Like Kastor,” Laurent said easily. “He has your men eating out of the palm of his hand. He has a wife. He—”

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

Laurent watched his face. He was just like Auguste, wearing all his emotions for everyone to see. Idiots, both of them. “You have shrunk yourself to make him look bigger. If it’s his love you are looking for, you won’t find it like this.”

Damianos looked away. “What do you know about love? I’ve seen how you treat your brother.”

Forcing himself not to react, Laurent said, “Unlike you, my brother is not trying to kill me. I must have done something right.”

“Kastor is not trying to kill me,” Damianos barked. It was a relief, to see him mad and snarling. Laurent had always liked his dogs with some fight left in them. “And we are brothers, no matter what you think about bastards. Of course he loves me.”

Damianos’s voice gave him away. It was too high, too fragile. Was it Laurent he was trying to convince, or himself? It did not matter either way. He was a terrible liar.

“There is a meeting today,” Laurent said, pacing around the room as he had done in the east wing so many weeks ago. This room was just as tidy as that one had been. Damianos was many things—a fool desperate for his brother’s love, for one—but he was not vulgar. “Your father wants to convince some Lords from Aegina to open a trade passage with Patras. Kastor will most likely vote against it and, given he already has most of the council on his side, he will win.”

“How do you know this?”

“It does not matter. What matters is that you will attend that meeting and side with your father. He listens to you. The rest of the council won’t dare contradict both of you, not even for Kastor.”

Damianos frowned. “That makes no sense. If I defy Kastor like that, he will retaliate. You don’t know what he’s like. Maybe I should side with him, show him my support, and—”

“Have you stopped to ask yourself why Kastor does not want your father’s plan to succeed?”

“He must think it’s a bad idea,” Damianos said swiftly. He was so eager to defend his brother it made Laurent want to gag. “My father is a good king, but even he makes mistakes from time to time.”

_Fucking your mother was a mistake_ , Laurent thought.

“Kastor knows it’s a good idea, which is why he’s sabotaging it. He knows it will improve your country’s economy, something Akielos definitely needs after the war. By forcing your father’s hand in the wrong direction he is trying to make himself stronger.”

“Why would that make him stronger?” Damianos argued. “If Akielos sinks, Kastor will sink with it.”

“When Akielos sinks, it is your father who will drown. Kastor will claim to know better and the men will believe him.”

“How do you know this?”

Laurent paused. It was all so clear to him, so obvious, that it was surprising Damianos could not see it. He’d once heard Jord say that gold was as good as any blindfold. Looking at Damianos’s face, at the confusion and despair there, Laurent realized love worked the same way.

“Because it is what I would do if I were him,” Laurent said. The sea was vicious today, waves tall and angry, the beach deserted. The sound was distracting. “Now get dressed. We have other things to discuss before you go.”

Damianos did not move from the bed. “I will not go,” he said, like a child. Had he been smaller, Laurent would have dared to smack him. “You are wrong. My brother is not like you.”

“Prove me wrong then. Go to the meeting and watch your brother closely. Listen to the way he talks to the other men at the table, how they laugh at his jests and slip notes to each other when they think no one is looking. Hear the contempt in his voice when he addresses your father. When you come back, you can tell me just how wrong I am.”

“I already watch—” Damianos stopped himself abruptly. He had not meant to say as much. “You are insufferable.”

“And you are incompetent. Now that we are done describing the other, would you dress? Or should I ask the girl to come back and help you?”

“You are wrong,” Damianos said again. “I know my brother.”

“Let us move past your intolerable love for Kastor. I did not leave Arles to listen to you moan about him.”

“Why did you leave Arles then?”

Damianos sat up on the bed and reached for his discarded chiton on the floor. He dressed without standing up, his back turned to Laurent. It was broad and just as dark as the rest of him, but it somehow looked smoother. Despite all his threats, Laurent had never liked the idea of flogging a man. How many whips, he wondered, could Damianos take? Horses had to be broken, Laurent had seen the stable boys training them multiple times. It seemed men were not too different.

“To keep my brother alive,” Laurent said. “And your brother too, if I can help it.”

“You think too highly of yourself.” Damianos fastened his chiton at the shoulder using two small pins. He was barefoot, his dark feet a stark contrast against the white floor. When he stretched his arms over his head he looked big enough to fight a bear. “I’ll go on one condition.”

Laurent steeled himself for the worst. “What do you want?”

“While I’m busy watching my brother, you are to play with other children down on the beach.”

“There are no children there,” Laurent said. He felt his body relaxing; it was not this he had been expecting to be asked. “The beach is empty.”

“Go find the stable boys then,” Damianos said with a shrug. “If they refuse, go to the dock. That’s where the fishermen’s sons gather after lunch.”

This was not the time to argue and throw tantrums. If Damianos wanted him to befriend the local children, Laurent would show him just how impossible it was for him to have friends.

“All right. But do not try to trick me. I’ll know if you have skipped the meeting.”

Damianos frowned. “You need to tell me who your spy is.”

“There is no spy,” Laurent said. “You simply are a terrible liar.”

*

Akielon children were not like Laurent had thought they would be.

He approached them with his head held high and his shoulders pushed back. Everything about him gave away who he was—the color of his hair, the fairness of his skin, the thickness of his accent—and Laurent took refuge in it. The royal blood coursing through his veins was his only hope at surviving them. Like Aimeric, they would not dare strike him once they learned he was a Prince.

Only four boys were gathered under the wooden dock. They were sitting in a tight circle, their backs hunched and heads almost touching as they played. Despite the loudness of the ocean, Laurent could hear their laughter all the way from the beach.

None looked at him as he walked towards them. When he had reached their circle, only one boy looked up from the game. His skin was darker than Damianos’s but his eyes were the color of fresh olives. He tilted his head a little, like a curious bird, and regarded Laurent silently.

“Do you wish to play?” the boy asked after a while.

Another boy looked up from the game too. His chiton was different than the other boys’ and he looked a bit older. _The leader_ , Laurent thought and dug his heels deeper into the sand. Surely he’d be the one to defy Laurent, to incite him into a fight as the others watched. There was a small chip on his front tooth. When he smiled, he looked younger than Laurent.

“Come play,” he said and shifted, making room for Laurent to sit down and join. “Red or green?”

Laurent stood very still. He remembered how eager Aimeric had been to play with him too, only to turn on him minutes later. These boys knew Akielon better than he did and, worse, they knew each other. Laurent was a foreigner. Had any fishermen been recruited to fight during the war? Had Auguste, or any other Veretian soldier, killed someone these boys knew? A brother, a father. Those were not losses one forgot easily.

“Red or green?” the boy with the chipped tooth asked again.

Now they were all looking at him.

“He does not understand,” another boy said. His brown eyes flickered from the sand to Laurent’s face. “The _dice_. Which one do you like more?”

Laurent bit his cheek. “Red,” he said, although he did not know why. He made sure to mispronounce the word, in case these boys were stupid enough to have overlooked all the signs that Laurent was not Akielon.

“You’re playing against Dion then.”

“Sit,” the olive-eyed boy told him. “You can’t play on your feet.”

“The red one is there,” another one said, pointing at a spot on the sand where the red dice rested. “It’s an easy game.”

“ _Game_ ,” the one to his left echoed in Veretian.

Laurent sat down on the sand. For once, he did not care about his clothes or how he looked. He hugged his knees to his chest and waited. Surely a joke would come and another would follow. Soon they would force him to leave.

The boy with the chipped tooth smiled again. He leaned forward and plucked the dice from the sand, wiping it on his chiton. “Here,” he said as he pressed it against Laurent’s hand. “It’s your turn. You have to make it roll. Like this.” He showed Laurent how it was done with his own dice. It was a washed-out blue color.

Laurent let the dice roll down the sand. It landed next to the blue one and one of the boys cheered. He watched as they scribbled on the sand with a stick, dividing the board in two and then three parts. When the olive-eyed boy’s dice pushed Laurent’s past one of the marks, they cheered again.

“He’s not very good,” one said after a while.

Laurent stilled. There was an icy remark sitting on his tongue, ready to be used. He had not said anything to Aimeric, but he would not stay quiet again if they mocked him.

“He’ll learn,” another answered. Turning to Laurent, he added, “Try the green one. It’s a lucky dice. Tell him, Dion.”

Frowning, Dion said, “I do not know the word.”

“ _Lucky_ ,” Laurent supplied in Veretian. “That’s the word.”

“Lucky, lucky, lucky,” Dion tried. He curled his mouth around the word, lips twisting and tongue scraping his teeth. “Like that?”

It took Laurent a moment to realize he was being addressed. “Yes. Like that.”

Dion smiled.

*

For the second time that day, Laurent forced open Damianos’s door. The sun had already set and dinner would be served soon, but Laurent could not wait until then to speak to Damianos. Anger was impatient.

Damianos was standing by the window, staring down at the ocean. His jaw was clenched, the muscles on his throat as tense as lyre strings.

_Was I wrong?_ Laurent wanted to ask him mockingly. He wanted to hurt him, to watch him writhe, but there was no time for that now. They would talk about the meeting after dinner when everyone else had already gone to sleep and Kastor and Jokaste were too busy fucking to keep an eye on them. Before they talked about Damianos’s family again, Laurent needed to calm down.

“How much?” Laurent asked. When Damianos did not turn to look at him, Laurent grabbed him by the arm. “How much did you pay them?”

Damianos shook Laurent’s hand off him. “I don’t—”

“You _do_ know,” Laurent snapped. “A golden coin each? A whole bag? Answer me.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“The boys under the dock.”

Damianos’s eyes roamed over his face, looking for something. “Did they hurt you? I did not think they would.”

“Of course they didn’t hurt me. You made sure of that, didn’t you? How much did this little mummer’s trick cost you?”

Laurent went to kick him again, just like he’d done two days ago, but Damianos moved away before Laurent’s foot connected with his shin. When he tried again, Damianos stilled him with a hand on the shoulder.

“What is the matter with you, you little brat?” Damianos spat out. He looked angry, angrier than Laurent had ever seen him. “Why are you kicking me?”

“You paid those boys to play with me,” Laurent said viciously. His own anger was making him light-headed. “What was the point, anyway? Did you think I would not notice? I’m not as foolish as you are. Was it a test? Why won’t you _answer_ me when I’m as—”

“ _Because_ ,” Damianos interrupted him, “I did not pay them. I did not talk to them. Whatever happened on the beach had nothing to do with me. Is that a good enough answer to your infernal questions? Will you stop yelling now?”

Laurent launched forward again, stomping on Damianos’s foot as hard as he could. He tried to kick him and knee him, but Damianos pushed him away, making sure to keep him at arm’s length so Laurent could not strike again.

“Stop trying to kick—”

“Aren’t you two quite a sight?” Jokaste asked from the door.

Damianos released him. He was breathing heavily, but when his eyes landed on Jokaste he slowed down. Was that all it took to break him, then? Laurent was not surprised.

“What do you want?” he asked her.

Jokaste did not bother with excuses. “Kastor told me you went to the meeting today. I was hoping we’d be able to talk about it.” Her blue eyes found Laurent’s. “Alone.”

“We’re busy,” Laurent said sharply.

Jokaste lifted an eyebrow, her right one. “Doing what, exactly?”

“I’m helping Laurent with his Akielon,” Damianos said, not fooling anyone with his terrible lying skills. “He’s struggling with some words.”

“Such as?”

“ _Snake_ ,” Laurent said before Damianos could respond. “And _two-faced_ —”

“You seem to know them perfectly,” Jokaste said. “Damianos is a good teacher.”

Damianos coughed. “He’s a good student.”

Jokaste looked like she wanted to say something else. Would she have walked in and sat on the bed, had Laurent not been there? Would she have kept her distance? There was something in her eyes when he looked at Damianos, something Laurent did not like, but she was harder to read than most people. She was not like Damianos or Auguste. Not even like Kastor, who wore his envy like an armor. Jokaste was equal parts ambitious and smart, a sort of breed Laurent had only seen a couple of times before. She did not give away her secrets as easily as Laurent would have liked.

“I’ll wait for you,” she said. “You know where.”

Damianos watched her leave. Once she had disappeared down the hall, he turned to Laurent again. All his anger had bled out of him at her words.

“You should not have called her a snake.”

“She _is_ a snake,” Laurent said. The urge to hurt Damianos had not left him completely. “And yet you still love her. After what she did, after she chose Kastor over you, you can’t stop loving her. It’s pathetic.”

“I do not love her,” Damianos said quietly. His voice did not shake, the words clear and perfectly said. With a start, Laurent realized he was not lying. “If what you told me is true, I owe her my life.”

“ _If_?” Laurent said. He felt like shrieking. “ _If_ what I told you is true?”

“I did what you asked me to. I went to the meeting and I watched Kastor.”

“And you still doubt me?”

Damianos shook his head. “I do not. I heard…” He hesitated, watching the doorway Jokaste had just abandoned. “I do not doubt you.”

Laurent said nothing.

“It’s worse than I thought. I don’t think—I _know_ we can’t do this without her. She’s the only one who can get through to Kastor. You antagonizing her will not do us any favors.”

Silence fell upon them. The red dice Laurent kept in his pocket felt like a hot coal, burning his fingers when he touched it. They’d let him keep it, told him to come back the next day to play again. _I’ll beat you_ , Dion had promised, laughing.

“The boys,” Laurent said. His voice must have sounded strange because Damianos gave him a long look. “You did not pay them.”

“No,” Damianos answered. “I did not.”

“They knew I was from Vere.”

This time, it was Damianos who did not say anything.

“I should not have kicked you,” Laurent said. “I… apologize.”

“Your brother warned me you do not get on with other children. Was I wrong to send you to the dock today?”

“Was I wrong to send you to your father’s meeting?”

Damianos angled his face away. He went back to staring at the ocean without saying a word. Was he thinking about Kastor or Jokaste? Was he thinking about his father? Again his hand was on his stomach, rubbing it absentmindedly. Was it the war? Laurent did not dare ask, unsure if he even wanted to know the answer.

_The most powerful lies_ , he thought.

*

The candlelight forced the shadows of his rooms to recede but it was not strong enough to make it easy for Laurent to read. It was the first night he had not fallen asleep immediately after dinner and he intended to use his time wisely.

Somewhere in the palace Jokaste was waiting for Damianos. Maybe they had met already. Maybe Damianos was the one waiting for her.

But Laurent did not want to think about that. Tonight, he wanted to read and forget he was in Akielos, surrounded by enemies and fools. He wanted—what, exactly?

The book on his lap was beautiful. Auguste had not only had it translated to Veretian, but also illustrated. The pages were stiff with newness and the ink was so black it looked like the words had just been written. Since it was too dark to read properly, Laurent thumbed through the book and focused only on the pictures. There was one of a ship, similar to _The Empress_ in everything except for the foremast, and another a few pages later of a mountain with houses carved into one of its faces.

This was the only thing besides his clothes Laurent had brought from Vere. He leaned forward, pressing his nose against one of the pages. It was silly and stupid and childish. Auguste had barely held this book, his hands had not even touched the paper. There was nothing of Auguste in it, not his smell or his handwriting, not even a dog-eared page to remember him by.

Laurent blew out the candle. Reaching under his pillow, his fingers found the coarse edges of the dice. He held it in his hand for a moment, straining his eyes to read the markings in the dark, and then put it back. Auguste’s book he did not move from the bed, curling around it before dragging the sheets over his head. Outside, the moon looked like a curved dagger, and Laurent did not want to see it.

He missed Vere’s moon. He missed his brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! I know, I KNOW, don't murder me. I know you all want to know about the medieval psychologist (also, how funny is that name?) and about Jord and Auguste (that goodbye tho) and... well, everyone. The answers will come, I promise.  
> I answered a cool question about my characterization of Damianos on Tumblr and I'd love for you to read that if you're interested! A lot of people have commented about this so [here's the link](https://thickenmyblood.tumblr.com/post/618924715662344192/reading-the-comments-of-your-fic-i-saw-you-called)  
> Speaking of Tumblr, the other day I found the most amazing drawing of Damianos by damianosismyking! [Here's the link to that, too](https://damianosismyking.tumblr.com/post/618765134607859712/drew-my-favorite-boi-please-do-not-repost)  
> Next chapter will be up on Wednesday (I know, it's more than three days away, I'm sorry). Thank you!


	9. Eight

**Eight**

“This is a shell,” Dion said, holding it up for Laurent to see. It was white with specks of brown all over it. Something had lived in it, once. “My mother makes necklaces with them. Like this one.” He tugged at the front of his chiton to show Laurent a blue seashell that hung from his neck by a thick brown leather lace.

Laurent knew about seashells. He’d seen them scattered all over the beach before, and he’d read about them too. Not quite understanding Dion’s excitement over it, Laurent only nodded. Things seemed to go smoother when he let the other boys know he understood what they were saying. Otherwise, they went on and on trying to explain it to him, convinced Laurent did not know what they were talking about. Last week, Aeneas had spent an hour gesturing wildly to try and teach Laurent to play knucklebones and had not stopped until Laurent explicitly told him he understood the rules of the game.

The touch of a hand on his ear made Laurent flinch. Dion only blinked and lowered his hand. “It is pierced,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Only one.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Laurent hesitated. “My uncle only gave me one earring,” he said. It occurred to him then that he could have lied. He could have said anything but the truth and Dion would not have known any better. Uncle was not known here. “It was blue, like your seashell.”

Dion gave him a long look. “Did you lose it?”

“Yes,” Laurent said. He started walking again, forcing Dion to follow. He did not want to talk about the earring anymore. Pointing at the white bird ahead, he asked, “What is that?”

“A bird,” Dion said easily.

Laurent forced himself not to snap. “I _know_ it’s a bird. I meant—”

“A white bird.” Dion looked up at the sky, eyes turning to slits to avoid the sun. “It’s going to rain.”

There was not a single cloud in sight.

“It’s not going to rain,” Laurent argued.

Dion touched his shoulder. “Race you,” he said before taking off towards the dock. The soles of his feet were cream-colored instead of brown and Laurent could not look away from them. When he noticed Laurent had not followed him, Dion stopped. “ _Race_ ,” he shouted in Veretian.

Laurent walked up to him as slowly as he could. “I know what a race is.”

“Do you?” Dion asked. He did that sometimes. _So?_ he’d ask when Laurent pointed out the futility of a game. He sounded like that now. “You have to run, not walk.”

“I don’t like running.”

Dion regarded him for a moment. “You don’t like a lot of things.”

Laurent flushed. “I like a lot of things.”

“Like what?” Dion asked him. They were walking side by side to the dock instead of running and every now and then Dion would kick the sand to watch it dance in the wind. “What can possibly be better than running?”

“Riding. Have you never ridden a horse before?”

“My brother has a horse,” Dion said pensively. He talked about his family a lot when it was just the two of them, Laurent had noticed. “What else?”

“Books,” Laurent said. When Dion didn’t say anything, Laurent thought he had not heard him. “ _Books_ ,” he repeated. “I like to read.”

Dion blinked. His eyes were the color of moss. “What is it like?”

“What is what like?”

“Reading.”

Laurent stopped walking. They were only a few steps away from the dock and some of the other boys were already there, laughing and playing. Timon was doing a headstand while Aeneas cheered him on, occasionally holding his ankles so he would not fall.

“You’ve never read a book?” Laurent asked.

Dion shook his head.

“ _Never_?”

“I do not know how,” Dion said impatiently. He was looking at the boys with a longing expression. He wanted to play, not stand here talking to Laurent about books. “Will you stay today? I’ve brought my green dice.”

Laurent could not. He had promised Damianos he’d be back at the palace for lunch. “Tomorrow,” he said. This too felt like a promise.

“Tomorrow no one will come to the beach,” Dion said. “It’s going to rain hard tonight.”

“How do you know that? There are no clouds.”

Dion tapped his nose twice. “I can smell it.”

“Rain does not have a smell,” Laurent argued. He tried to be compliant and agreeable, but sometimes Dion made him want to scream. His carelessness drove Laurent mad most of the time. “Besides, it hasn’t rained in days. How can you smell something that has not happened yet?”

“I just can,” Dion said easily. He turned around and started walking towards the other boys.

They all waved at Laurent. Timon, still standing upside down, waved his right foot. For some unexplainable reason, Laurent wanted to stay. He thought of what it would be like if he did not have to go back to the palace. He could stay and practice headstands and maybe even run, despite how much he hated it. Dices or knucklebones, it was all the same to him. It was not winning he cared about.

But Laurent could not stay. He was not like these boys, the son of a fisherman or a blacksmith. He was the Prince of Vere and he had not come all this way to sit under the dock and play like a child.

Usually, Laurent had lunch in his rooms. Sometimes Pallas brought it to him, other times a nameless slave. He rarely shared any meals with the royal family, partly because they sickened him with their stupidity, and partly because they reminded him too much of what he’d had, once.

“Took you long enough,” Damianos said when Laurent stepped into his rooms. He’d already started eating. “I thought you were not coming.”

“I promised I’d come, didn’t I?”

Laurent sat as far away from Damianos as he could while still being able to reach the fruit bowl. There we no grapes here, but the pears and apples were just as good. Maybe, just maybe, they were even better than at Arles.

“So, Jokaste.”

Biting into an apple, Laurent said, “What about her?”

“Are you not curious about what she’s told me?” Damianos asked. His chiton was dirty, covered in dust and mud, a clear sign he’d spent the morning riding with Nikandros. “You should be,” he added when Laurent did not answer.

“You’ll tell me regardless of my level of curiosity.”

Damianos frowned. “Well, yes, but—”

“Then tell me and stop stalling. You’re giving me indigestion.”

“She said Kastor is not happy about my sudden interest in politics,” Damianos said. He did not sound too happy after being interrupted, but Laurent paid him no mind. Reaching for the jug of water, Damianos poured himself a cup. “He wants to convince my father I am unfit to offer him advice.”

Laurent almost snorted. That was nothing he did not know already. “What does she suggest you do?”

“How did you know she suggested anything?”

“I didn’t,” Laurent said, taking another bite of his apple. It was grainy but sweet, so he took another bite. “You just confirmed it to me now.”

With a roll of his eyes, Damianos said, “She told me it’s best if I stop going to the meetings altogether. Once Kastor does not see me as a threat anymore, she’ll—”

“It’s a bad idea,” Laurent interrupted. “You’re the heir and he’s a bastard. He will always see you as a threat.”

“She’s trying to convince him. Jokaste…” Damianos paused, grappling with the words. “She can be very persuasive when she wants to.”

Now Laurent did snort. “Tell me, how exactly does she plan on making your traitorous brother forget that he wants the throne?”

Damianos opened his mouth, seemed to reconsider, and closed it again. He was silent for a moment, probably thinking of ways to defend Jokaste, when his face broke into an unexpected grin. “I almost forgot,” he said and, tugging at one of the many folds of his chiton, he produced a letter.

“What is that?” Laurent asked, leaning forward to snatch it out of Damianos’s hand.

Damianos was quicker. He waved it invitingly but too far away from Laurent’s reach. “It’s for you.”

Reaching for it and missing again, Laurent snapped, “Then give it to me. Who is it from?”

“Your brother.”

Laurent froze. After a moment, he let his hand drop, not trying to get the letter anymore. “Is he well?”

Damianos eyed him curiously. “How would I know? I have not read it.”

“Why not?” Laurent forced himself to ask. He forced himself to take another bite of his apple, to chew and swallow and breathe. When Damianos’s eyes did not leave him, he added, “Well? Are you not going to read it now?”

“It is your name, not mine, that’s scribbled on the back of the envelope.” He was frowning, which was never a good sign. Damianos only frowned when he was confused or thinking, and Laurent did not want him to think too hard about this. “I thought you’d be excited to hear from Auguste.”

“I am.”

“You do not seem excited,” Damianos said. He dropped the letter on the table and pushed it towards Laurent. “I’m sure all is well in Vere if that’s what you are worried about.”

“I am not worried,” Laurent said quietly. He did not like the way Damianos was looking at him. Instead of picking up the letter, he placed the core of his apple on the table and reached for his cup. “I believe we were speaking of Jokaste.”

“Are you not going to read it?” Damianos asked, sounding incredulous.

There was nothing Laurent wanted more than to read that letter, but he did not want to do it with someone else watching him. So far, he’d managed to avoid wallowing in self-pity during the day, reserving the hours after dinner to berate himself and think about Auguste. It did not seem very wise to let Damianos see him like that.

At the same time, Laurent did not want to know what was happening in Vere. He did not want to read about Jord or Lazar. He did not even want to read about Auguste’s new life without him. If all was well then Laurent was glad, but he did not want to know exactly _how_ well. Auguste would never tell him he was not missed, not explicitly, but Laurent did not need him to.

What could Auguste have possibly written that interested Laurent? Even if his brother had found where Uncle was hiding, he would never tell Laurent about it. He never told Laurent anything, so why would he start now, through a letter?

“Not now,” Laurent said. “We have more important things to discuss.”

“More important than your brother?”

Laurent ignored him. “You need to take on more responsibilities. We need to get your men to trust you and respect you. If you stop going to those meetings, everyone will think your word is not valuable and your advice not to be relied on.”

“Did you not hear what I just said? Kastor is not happy about—”

“I heard you perfectly, but you can’t live your life based on your half-brother’s feelings. When I said _your men_ I also meant Kastor. He needs to respect you enough to…” Laurent trailed off. “To let you live.”

Damianos’s jaw was set. “My brother—”

But Laurent did not want to hear it. “He is a good man,” he said, even though he did not believe it. Good men did not plot against their own families, they did not hurt those they loved. “He only needs to be reminded of his place.”

“You’re wrong,” Damianos said stubbornly. “He needs to be reminded that there is more to him than the role he’s been assigned.”

That caught Laurent’s attention. “What do you mean?”

“He was the heir for nine years before I was born,” Damianos said. There was passion in his words, as though he’d been burning to say them. “Everyone promised him the throne, even my father. And then they took that promise away. Every day for the past nineteen years he’s had to live with that, with everyone telling him what he can and can not do. Don’t you see it? He’s sick of it.”

Laurent considered for a moment. “You may be right, but that doesn’t change the fact that he can never have the throne. Promised or not, the throne belongs to you, Damianos.”

“I know,” Damianos said, slouching. “I only—there has to be a way to make him see that. He needs to feel…”

“Important,” Laurent finished for him. “He needs to feel like he does not need to be the King.”

They were both quiet for a moment. It seemed like all that could be said had already been spoken, and yet they had not reached a solution. For once, Damianos had laid the issue bare in front of their eyes: nineteen years of envy. What, Laurent wondered, could be traded in for a throne?

“Does he truly love you?” Laurent asked. He forced himself to look into Damianos’s eyes. “You’ve claimed he does, before. But I’m asking you to think carefully about your answer now. Does Kastor have any love for you?”

“He did once.” After a long pause, Damianos added, “When we were children. We were…”

“Yes?” Laurent asked impatiently.

A sort of plan was beginning to form in his head, but he could not give it his full attention until Damianos completed his monologue.

But Damianos did not answer straight away. A second passed and then another, and Laurent was close to grinding his teeth when Damianos said, “He was like Auguste when I was a child.”

Laurent bristled. “Don’t you dare compare my brother to yours.”

Damianos’s eyes found his. “He did not hate me when we were children, that is all I meant.”

“Not hating someone is not the same as loving them.”

“What do you want me to say?” Damianos bit out. “That he’s always abhorred me? He has not. Kastor is not the monster you’re painting him to be. Someone must have been poisoning his heart with lies and—and—”

“What lies could he have been fed?” Laurent asked. He knew better than to push Damianos when he got like this, so disagreeable. “It’s his envy that’s corroding him, not lies. There’s nothing untruthful about his claim to the throne. He is not claiming to be the rightful heir or hiding his status as a bastard. Kastor only wants what is not his.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

Laurent startled. He had not been expecting Damianos’s voice to sound so wrecked. _I do not have all the answers_ , Laurent wanted to say but knew he could not. Had he not claimed to know what to do? Had he not told Damianos over and over again that he would give him advice?

“Jokaste claims Kastor listens to her,” Laurent said. He was thinking out loud, his mind trying to work through the problems as they came to him. “But why would she side with us against him? If Kastor succeeds, she will be Queen. If he does not, then what does she gain?”

Unlike he’d done with his brother, Damianos did not try to argue about the honesty behind Jokaste’s help. “Perhaps she has no faith in him. If he does not succeed and is caught red-handed, then…”

“Both their heads will roll,” Laurent said when Damianos stopped himself. “Interesting.”

“I’m glad you find my family amusing,” Damianos said with a wry smile.

“Has she made any advances at you?”

“She is my brother’s wife.”

Laurent cocked his head. “That is not what I asked you.”

“She has not,” Damianos said sharply.

“Very well then,” Laurent said. He pushed himself away from the table and grabbed his brother’s letter. Folding it in half, he stored it away in his pocket. “Summon her to your rooms tonight. I’ll be waiting there for her.”

“ _You_? Why would you be in my rooms?”

“Because I wish to speak to her,” Laurent said. “We need to discuss our part of the deal.”

Damianos frowned again. He was not confused but thinking everything through. “You think she wants something in return,” he said after a while. It was not a question.

“Of course she does. That’s what a deal is, Damianos. Both parts get something out of it.”

Now that he had it on him, the letter seemed to burn through the layers of his clothes, an insistent itch that would not go away on its own. Laurent wanted to be alone to inspect it—the wax seal, the sort of paper Auguste had chosen, the state of the envelope—but Damianos did not seem satisfied with their conversation just yet.

“What are we offering her?”

Laurent shrugged. “First, we need to know what she’s asking of us.”

“But what if—” Damianos cut himself off. He did that a lot around Laurent lately. Seeming to reconsider, he said, “What if the price is too high?”

“Is there something you value more than your own life?” Laurent asked. He watched Damianos closely and when he shook his head, Laurent added, “Then no price is too high.”

Damianos walked him to the door. “You never answered my question. What am I supposed to do about Kastor?”

“All in good time,” Laurent said. A loud sound startled him, but when he looked around nothing seemed out of place. “What was that?”

Damianos seemed amused. “Thunder. It’s going to rain today,” he answered, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Laurent did not bother to answer. He would ask Dion about it when he saw him again. This particular Akielon trick Laurent did want to learn. It was the closest thing to sorcery he had ever encountered.

*

_—not the same without you. I miss you terribly, every day. This morning I went to your rooms, excited to tell you about the spices the Lord of Ladehors had sent, and only when I opened the door did I realize you are no longer here. Even Jord seems—_

*

Laurent knew he was sitting on the floor because he could feel its coldness seeping through his clothes. Only marble could ever be that cold. And yet he did not remember sitting down or thinking about sitting down or even wanting to.

What was the last thing he remembered doing? Was it lying on his bed or playing on the beach? Was it eating that apple with Damianos sitting in front of him? Laurent found he did not know. Was it still day or had the moon come out by now? Was he even sitting on the floor of his own rooms or was he somewhere else?

He knew, for a fact, that his eyes were open. Not because he could see anything through them, but because they burned insistently. How long had he gone without blinking this time? When he closed them the prickling went away, but upon opening them again he found he could not see anything at all.

A memory came to him, unbidden. Was it a memory at all or a dream? Again, Laurent did not know the answer.

There was a hand, somewhere. Its touch was not gentle, and yet it did not hurt him. Laurent could not understand why. He remembered it hurting. He _knew_ it had hurt. Where had all the pain gone? If he could feel the cold of each ring against his skin, why could he not feel the sting?

He turned his head to the side, his muscles remembering on their own the force of the slap, but the pain stayed away.

His eyes were burning. Why did he keep forgetting to blink? Laurent did so furiously, trying to will his sight to return to him, but it too stayed out of reach. His hands were cold, palms pressed against—what? The marble floor? There was a buzzing too, like bees flying too close to his ears, drowning every other sound around him. Was that the rush of his own blood?

The cold went away so suddenly Laurent had no time to be concerned. Something closed his eyelids for him, something soft and warm. There was a smell, like salt and alcohol, and then Laurent could see again.

“Laurent,” Damianos said tentatively. Was his voice usually so deep? “Can you hear me now?”

Laurent could hear him. He could also feel him everywhere. Looking down Laurent realized he was sitting on Damianos’s lap and that they were both on the floor. Damianos was holding something to Laurent’s nose—a leather pouch perhaps?—but he was quick to pull it away before Laurent could get a better look at it.

“Yes,” Laurent said. He could have added any insult, any jab, but he found he did not want to. He was too tired. “I can.”

“I’m going to move you to the bed,” Damianos said. He was not asking. “Are you nauseous?”

Laurent thought about it. “No.”

“Good,” Damianos said. He slid his hands under Laurent’s armpits and stood up, dragging Laurent upwards with him. “And now? Are you nauseous?” he asked as he sat Laurent on the edge of the bed.

Laurent fell backward into the mattress. He felt boneless in a bad way. “No,” he replied eventually. “You’ve asked that already.”

The ceiling above his head was startlingly white. Laurent sighed in relief; it was still daytime.

When his boot fell to the floor with a loud thud, Laurent raised his head slightly to look at Damianos. He was kneeling on the floor, his hands tugging at Laurent’s other boot. “What are you doing?”

Still tugging at Laurent’s boot, Damianos said, “I’m tucking you into bed.”

“Why?” Laurent asked. He craned his neck to look at the sun through the window, only to make sure he had not confused night and day.

Infuriatingly, Damianos did not answer.

“ _Why_?”

“Because.”

Laurent went back to staring at the ceiling. “I am not tired,” he said.

“I know,” Damianos said simply. “But you should still get some rest.”

Brain thawing, Laurent asked, “What are you doing here?”

Damianos rolled Laurent’s socks off. “Pallas told me you were unwell.”

“I have not talked to Pallas.” _Or seen him_ , Laurent added to himself. “And I am not unwell.”

Damianos lifted himself off the floor. Laurent thought he would leave, but Damianos sat on the edge of the bed instead, looking down at him. “How long were you sitting on the floor?”

So he _had_ been sitting on the floor after all. “I do not know.”

“Why were you sitting there instead of on a chair or on the bed?”

“I do not know,” Laurent said again. He could not come up with anything else.

Damianos did not mock him for it. “I did not believe Auguste when he told me,” he said casually, still looking at Laurent. “I thought you were faking it, desperate to get your brother’s attention.” Attempting a smile, he added, “You’ve always seemed rather histrionic to me.”

“Faking what?” Laurent asked. He was playing dumb and he knew Damianos could see right through it, but he was only trying to buy himself more time. His brain was taking its time to fully wake up. “My fainting spells?”

“Auguste warned me you’d tell me that.”

“The truth?” Laurent tried. He had to.

Damianos gave him a long look. He pulled the sheets over Laurent’s body up to his chin, tucking him in as one would do a toddler. “I have seen people faint many times. Never like this.”

“What did my brother tell you?”

Laurent schooled his face into indifference. He did not want Damianos to see how betrayed he felt. Auguste had promised— _No one will know, I promise_ —and he’d lied. Of course he’d lied. Hadn’t he lied about the sea, too? Why should brotherhood make a man honest? Auguste could lie to Laurent all he wanted. Hadn’t he lied, too, in his letter?

“He said you have these really vivid dreams sometimes,” Damianos explained. “And that you can’t always pull yourself out of them on your own.”

Laurent neither confirmed it nor denied it. “What was in the pouch?”

“Salts, mostly,” Damianos said. “Auguste gave them to me before we left Arles. I think they were a gift from your physician.”

“Paschal?”

“Laurent,” Damianos said. His name felt strange coming from Damianos’s mouth. He had spent most of the time they’d known each other calling Laurent a brat. “I _know_. There is no need to lie.”

“What do you know?” Laurent snapped. He threw the sheets off him, their weight on his chest making it hard for him to breathe properly. “What did my brother tell you? Whatever you think you know, it’s not the truth.”

“I know you are unwell and I know he called for that Patran phy—”

Drunk on his relief, Laurent laughed. “That old man,” he said. Damianos did not know, not everything. Auguste had not told him the whole truth. “He was nothing but a scammer.”

“The salts brought you back,” Damianos argued. He started to cover Laurent with the sheets again but stopped when Laurent swatted his hands away. “How do you explain that? Besides, your brother is not stupid. He would have noticed if that man had been a liar.”

“My brother is a fool.”

“You do not mean that.”

Laurent closed his eyes. For a second, he wished he could slip back into that dream-like state where nothing hurt and he could not see anything even with his eyes wide open. Fainting would have been even better. It would be like falling asleep, except no dreams would come to him, no memories or thoughts. It’d be like dying. Weren’t the poets always going on about the peace and the quiet of death?

“Laurent,” Damianos called.

“He is,” Laurent said without opening his eyes. “And so are you.”

“You need to sleep.”

Laurent felt the sheets covering him again, but this time he did not struggle. He was still shivering from lying on the cold floor for so long and the sheets were warm. Usually, Laurent detested sleeping with his clothes on, but now he could not bring himself to change out of them. He could do little but roll away from Damianos and curl around his pillow. Listening to the waves crashing outside, he understood why Akielons liked the ocean so much. It was like a lullaby of sorts.

*

_—and Jord’s legs are healing nicely, or so Paschal tells me. In a few weeks he will be able to stand on his own, and a month from now he may even be allowed to ride a horse. He has asked me about you every day since you have left. Lazar is more discreet when it comes to his questions, but I think he misses you too. Last week, one of the cooks came to see me, worried because there were no grapes. She was beyond flustered when I reminded her you were the only one who liked them. I told her—_

*

It was night when Laurent woke up.

There was someone sitting on the end of the bed. Fueled by the darkness of the room, Laurent’s first conscious thought was of his uncle. He sat up, the words only waiting to be said— _Uncle, you’ve come_ —and then he noticed the chiton and the dark curls. It was Damianos.

“Why are you still here?”

Damianos startled. He had been close to falling asleep. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“While I slept?” Laurent demanded. “You should not be here. Jokaste—”

“I told Jokaste we’d talk tomorrow,” Damianos said. He stretched and turned his head, groaning when there was a loud popping sound. “You missed dinner, but I’ve brought you an apple and some bread if you’re hungry. I could probably ask the slaves to make you something else if you insist on eating an actual meal.”

Laurent sat, completely frozen, for a minute. “Why?”

It was raining heavily. Every now and then, a flash of lightning would illuminate the whole room only to be gone the next second. There was something in the air, something even Laurent could smell. Wet sand and salt and sea breeze.

“I just told you,” Damianos said. He yawned, still stretching. “In case you’re hungry.”

Laurent frowned. He must have misunderstood. “You brought me food and stayed with me while I slept,” he said. Damianos did not correct him. “I don’t—what do you want?”

“Right now? I want to sleep. My back is killing me from sitting like this.”

“No, I mean from me. What do you want from _me_?”

Damianos stopped mid-stretch. “Why would I want anything from you?” The lightning came and showed Laurent that Damianos was frowning too.

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“You were unwell and you missed dinner. I am only trying to—doesn’t your brother do this for you when you are sick?”

At the mention of Auguste, Laurent could not help but stiffen even further. “Watch me sleep?”

“Look after you,” Damianos said and his voice was almost gentle.

“You are not my brother,” Laurent said thickly. He could feel his throat closing, exactly as it had done that night in Auguste’s rooms when they’d been fighting. “You would not look after me unless you wanted something in return.”

Damianos was silent for a moment as if considering. “What do you think I want?”

Laurent had an answer but did not dare say it. He kept silent.

“I lost my mother when I was younger than you,” Damianos said. “When I was scared during a thunderstorm it was Kastor who stayed with me. He’d sneak me food from the kitchens and play with me until the storm had passed.” Another lightning. Damianos was smiling. “He always let me win.”

“I don’t understand why you’re telling me this.”

“Sometimes people do things for others, not because they have to or because they want something in return. Have you never done something out of love?”

_I came here. I left Arles._

“But I—you’re not my brother.”

“I am not,” Damianos agreed. “That does not mean I’m here because I have to, Laurent. I was only trying to help.”

Laurent struggled to understand. Perhaps it was all a trick. Perhaps this was Damianos’s way of earning his trust, of getting Laurent to be vulnerable, only to have him at his mercy later on. Why else would he try to help? Even if Auguste had asked this of him, it seemed ridiculous that Damianos would go to such lengths to keep his word. Auguste was not here, he was miles away and would never find out whether or not Damianos had pulled Laurent from his dreams or fed him or even spent time with him.

But Damianos was being honest. Laurent knew what a terrible liar he was, he’d seen it, and he knew Damianos was not lying to him right now.

“Here,” Damianos said, pushing something into Laurent’s hands. “It’s an apple.”

“I don’t—”

“You don’t have to eat it, but I think you should. You’re looking pale.”

Laurent smacked Damianos’s thigh with the apple. “I’m always pale.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to fall asleep again after you’ve eaten?”

“Who says I’m eating the apple?” Laurent asked, taking a huge bite of it. He had not realized he was starving until Damianos gave him the fruit. “And yes, I’ll sleep.”

Damianos stood, making the bed creak loudly. Laurent felt, for only a moment, like he was back home in his own bed. “Good. We’ll talk more in the morning after _I_ have gotten some sleep.”

Hesitantly, Laurent said, “No one asked you to stay with me, you idiot.”

Even in the damp darkness of the room, without any lightning, Laurent knew Damianos was smiling. He could feel it. That was what Dion must have meant on the beach when he said he could smell the rain. It was almost as though Damianos’s smile was tangible, something to hold on to.

“Goodnight, brat.”

*

_—did you like the sea? I must have been about your age when I saw it for the first time. I remember wishing you were old enough to come with Father and me. Mother hated the sea because it made her dizzy, and since you were still nursing you had to stay with her at home. I was so upset on your behalf, thinking how much you would have loved it, how beautiful it was. I told Father next time I saw the sea it’d be with you by my side. That was one of my only promises to you I have been able to keep. I hope next time we see it together you will not have outgrown me, that you will let me hug you at least once. Laurent, I—_

*

Everything was silent until Jokaste spoke.

“Why is he here?” she asked Damianos, looking at Laurent. She did not sound betrayed, but it was always hard to know with her. Surprise did not twist her features; she had been expecting Laurent to be there. “You told me to come alone and yet you’ve brought him with you.”

“Who would you have brought?” Laurent humored her. “Kastor?”

There were three chairs around the wooden table in Damianos’s rooms, yet they all remained standing. It was as though they were on different sides of a clearly drawn line: Damianos and Laurent stood to the left, while Jokaste was on her own on the right.

Jokaste opened her mouth to respond, but Damianos was faster. “We are all here on a common cause,” he said. “You should at least try to get along, both of you.”

“Since when do you listen to the whispers of a child?” Jokaste asked. Her delicate nose was up in the air as if contempt would save her from the humiliation of Laurent’s presence. “A Veretian one, to make matters worse.”

“He has every reason to help me,” Damianos said. “He wants the alliance to prosper as much as I do, and for that to happen Kastor can not be King.”

Jokaste did not pretend to not know about Kastor’s intentions. “And how do you propose we stop him from reaching out and taking what he wants?”

“That is not what we are gathered here to discuss,” Laurent said swiftly. He did not want Damianos to explain their plan before they heard what Jokaste was after. If things went right, which Laurent hoped they would, then there would be many nights to come where they would explain to Jokaste what she was to do. “What we want to know is why you are conspiring against your husband.”

“You must have your theories,” Jokaste said, waving his hand in Laurent’s direction. Her eyes never left Damianos. “What does it matter, as long as I am on your side?”

“Because you would not help us unless you wanted something in return,” Damianos told her. He was quoting Laurent. “We can theorize about your reasons all night, but only you can tell us what it is you’re after, Jokaste.”

Jokaste’s eyes landed on Laurent. “You know what I want.”

“You will never be Queen,” Laurent answered. “Marrying Kastor was a mistake.”

“Yes,” Jokaste said. Now they were both speaking the truth. “I will never rule and I do not fool myself with such pretenses.”

Damianos frowned. “What has changed? If you married my brother because you wanted the throne, why betray him now? He is powerful and influential. He could…”

_He could still win_.

“I never counted on you to see him for what he is,” Jokaste said and her voice carried. It seemed to bounce off the walls, amplified. “He will not succeed now that you know what he intends to do, and I…” For a moment, she did not speak. “I do not wish to follow him into exile.”

Laurent heard the word she was not saying. _Death_. She knew better than anyone what the punishment for treason was. It was not exile, but the sword. Damianos knew it too.

“Is that all you want?” Damianos asked, sounding naively hopeful. “To be allowed to stay and live?”

Jokaste smiled. Laurent knew then that whatever words left her mouth would not be pleasant to hear. Her smile was unlike any other he had ever seen. It was like a panther showing its teeth.

“I will never rule,” Jokaste said slowly, “but my son will.”

“Are you with child?” Laurent asked. He saw Damianos tense beside him, shoulders receding. “How many weeks along are you?”

“I am not, but I will be soon. What I want,” she drew out, “is Damianos’s word that my son will rule when he dies.”

“But he won’t,” Damianos said after a beat. He was looking at Laurent as if pleading with him. _Tell her she’s wrong_ , his eyes said. “Kastor is a bastard. His son will never be my heir.”

At last, the truth was before them. Laurent knew Damianos could see it too, only he did not want to. _What if the price is too high?_ he’d asked Laurent the night before. Now, Laurent wished he had told him it would be.

“He will,” Laurent explained, even though he did not have to. Damianos knew. “He will if you have no sons.”

“I want your word,” Jokaste said into the heavy silence. “Damianos, swear to me you will not have any sons or daughters, and I will hand you your brother’s heart.”

“Do you trust his word that much?” Laurent found himself asking. “What is said today can easily be forgotten tomorrow.”

Jokaste took a step forward. When she pressed her pale hand to Damianos’s chest, he did not move. Like a dark statue, he stood rooted to the spot and stared back at her with so much intensity Laurent felt compelled to look away.

“Yes,” she said. “And if you knew him the way I do, so would you.”

*

_I love you. Always._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! I finished editing this a bit sooner than I thought I would, so I'm posting it now instead of tomorrow.  
> The whole smelling salts thing is real. I did some research as I was writing this chapter and it seems like they were really popular in Victorian Britain. [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smelling_salts) is the Wikipedia page about it!  
> I have to say I'm not a huge fan of including letters/treaties/contracts into my writing, but I'm trying to make an effort here because I just can't let go of Auguste. I also need them to explain some things that have happened off screen (sorry!).  
> Next chapter will be up on Saturday! Thank you for reading!


	10. Nine

**Nine**

Theomedes put his hand on Damianos’s shoulder and squeezed. It should have felt reassuring, but all Damianos could think of was Kastor’s blank expression as he watched them across the table.

“Nikandros will go with you when he returns from Delpha,” his father said. “It’s only a day’s ride to Kesus, but I’m sure some company will be appreciated.”

Damianos shook his head firmly. “Father, I would like Kastor to come with me.”

The Council fell silent. Theomedes looked at Kastor, who did not seem surprised at all by Damianos’s request. After a moment’s consideration, he laughed. It was a rich sound and soon everyone in the room had joined in. Everyone but Kastor and Damianos.

“A brothers’ mission is it then,” Theomedes said. “Unless Kastor would rather stay?”

Kastor was not looking at their father. His gaze was fixed on Damianos, all brown-eyed fury. “I’ll go,” he answered sharply. That loose tongue of his would one day get him into serious trouble if he was not careful.

Theomedes shrugged his son’s tone off. “Very well. The meeting is over. I trust you both will be on your best behavior.”

Men began to leave the room in small groups, but Damianos stayed behind. He did not move from his seat, not even when his father left. Once they were alone, one at each end of the table, Damianos let himself relax. Laurent would have told him off for it, but Laurent was not here.

Kastor stiffened. Unlike Damianos, he did not seem to like their current situation. “What do you think you are doing?”

“Lounging,” Damianos answered.

“Why not take Nikandros with you?” Kastor asked. “Why ask _me_ to go in his place?”

 _Because I don’t trust you to be on your own, not even for a day_. “You’ve always been better at bargaining with the kyroi than Nikandros.”

“You know as well as I do that it was not Nikandros who could have done the bargaining,” Kastor said. “It is all an excuse anyways.”

Damianos knew. He had already discussed it with Laurent over breakfast. “He wants me to find a wife.”

Judging by the look on Kastor’s face, it was clear he had not been expecting Damianos to say that. “You should,” was all he said for a while. “Next year you will be twenty.”

“And the one after that, twenty-one.”

The council room was far too large for only the two of them and every time they spoke their voices sounded distorted and echoey. It was like being inside a cave and shouting, only to hear the cave shout back.

“Such is the pass of time,” Kastor said.

Damianos only held his gaze, daring Kastor to say what they were both thinking about. If Kastor’s plans turned into actions, then Damianos would not live to turn twenty-one. Maybe not even twenty.

Of course, Kastor did not mention any of that. “We leave tomorrow at dawn. I’ll be waiting for you at the gates.”

“Brother,” Damianos said when Kastor had risen from his seat. “It will only be the two of us.”

“For two days,” Kastor added. He did not ask Damianos what he’d meant by that. Perhaps he did not dare. “Hopefully, we will not drive each other mad.”

Many things could happen in the span of two days. An ill horse, a cup of poisoned wine, a small dagger to the back. _Would you dare?_ Damianos wanted to ask him. _Would you dare do it with your own hands?_

“Hopefully,” Damianos said.

The room echoed it back to him, distortedly eerie.

*

— _repay you. I know Laurent will write back to me soon, but I am afraid he will not be honest in his answers. Already I am asking too much of you, and yet I can not stop myself from doing so. Is he well? Is he eating? He would refuse food sometimes when he was here. I am sure he is being difficult and stubborn, for that is how he behaves around strangers, but with time he—_

*

Damianos knocked twice. He was about to knock again when Laurent opened the door, already scowling and wearing one of his pristine blue outfits.

Despite the fact that Laurent had been staying at the palace for over two weeks now, he was yet to unpack a single thing. He dressed himself and hated asking the slaves for things, something Damianos had learned the hard way. Refusing to wear a tunic, Laurent would lace himself up every single day in those impractical and stiff Veretian clothes he loved so much, and Damianos could not help but feel impressed by his perseverance. He was such an odd child, so different from the way Damianos had been at that age, that it sometimes seemed like Laurent was not a child at all.

And yet there was something about him Damianos could not quite understand. It was obvious Laurent enjoyed spending time at the beach with the local boys, but he rarely went to see them unless Damianos asked him to. Auguste had warned him about Laurent’s short temper when it came to children his age, and yet Damianos was yet to witness a fight between Laurent and the fishermen’s sons. So far, there had been no outbursts, no murder attempts. Nothing.

It gnawed at Damianos, like an itch he could not scratch.

“Have you gone to the beach today?” Damianos asked as he stepped into the room. He heard the door slam closed behind him and knew Laurent had kicked it.

“No,” Laurent said. _Still_ scowling. “I was reading until you interrupted me.”

Damianos noticed the book on the bed. It was open nearly towards the end and there was a drawing of a snake on the right page. “What is that?” he asked, walking towards it. He had not even held it for a second when he felt Laurent’s insistent tugging on his chiton, trying to pull him away.

“Don’t _touch_ it! Your hands are dirty.”

Damianos laughed, holding the book high over Laurent’s head so he could not reach it. “I only want to see the drawing.”

“Of course you do,” Laurent said, clinging to Damianos’s chiton so he could pull himself up. “I bet you don’t even know how to read.”

Damianos handed him the book. It was the same one Laurent was always reading, the one he slept with. It was not a thick book, which meant Laurent must have already read it cover to cover. There was a library here, but all the books were in Akielon and Laurent’s reading skills were far poorer than his speech. Perhaps…

“You should go to the dock,” Damianos said. He sat on the bed and waited for Laurent to join him. For some reason, Laurent always wanted to be the one standing. “It’s warm outside and your friends—”

“I do not have friends,” Laurent said derisively. He was still on his feet. “I can’t waste my time with games and boys.”

Damianos regarded him for a moment. Sometimes it seemed like Laurent was not speaking his mind, but rather quoting someone else. It was hard to believe Auguste would convince his brother of such things, yet there was no one else closer to Laurent than him. A quick flash of anger surged through Damianos, hot and viscous. No one had the right to tell a child what he was to do outside of his lessons, let alone forbid him from making friends.

“Is that why you did not have any friends back home? Because it was a waste of time?”

Laurent did not seem offended. It was clear he did not care about being called friendless. “There were no children in the palace.”

“I met one,” Damianos said, watching Laurent’s expression closely. He was good at not reacting and keeping his emotions to himself, but there was still a flicker of something in his eyes. “He did not seem to like you much, although I do not know why.”

He did know why. Laurent was disagreeable and rude, inspiring homicidal tendencies on everyone he talked to. It was easy to see why he did not have any friends. But still, it seemed strange that no boys would try and look past his subtle cruelty if only to gain a powerful ally. Being friends with a Prince was no small treasure. It was the key to open almost any door.

“Aimeric is witless. I’d rather have no friends than endure his presence.”

“And the boys you play games with here?” Damianos asked. “Are they witless too?”

Laurent looked away, conflicted. He was wringing his hands, a gesture Damianos had never seen him do before. With Laurent, everything was always precise and succinct, his movements seemed to be planned to the last detail. Even his words sounded practiced sometimes.

“There is a boy…” Laurent started. He looked at Damianos again, this time in search of something. When he spoke again, his voice was steadier than before. “He does not know how to read.”

“I am sure none of those boys do,” Damianos said slowly. They were the sons of fishermen and local merchants, not Princes. “Do you dislike that about him?”

Laurent huffed. “I don’t—It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

“I can not teach him,” Laurent said frustratedly. His hair was tied back today, but a golden lock escaped and got into his eyes from time to time. He blew it away in anger and added, “My Akielon is not good enough and his Veretian is sloppy at best.”

“Why would you teach him?” Damianos asked. He thought he knew the answer, but he wanted Laurent to say it out loud. He wanted to be sure he was not misreading the signs.

Ever since he had witnessed one of Laurent’s dazed states—if they could even be called that way—Damianos could not help but feel like he had been wrong to antagonize the boy. Laurent was rude and irascible, but he was thirteen years old. He was away from his family for the first time in his life and he was clearly struggling with _something_. Whether they were fainting spells or his own quick temper, Damianos did not care.

Auguste had trusted him with this. He’d pulled Damianos aside the night before _The empress_ sailed to explain to ask him to pay attention to Laurent, even from a distance. He had given him the salts and answered most of Damianos’s questions. Auguste had not hesitated to offer him anything in return.

“Why did you change your mind?” Damianos had asked him at last.

“I can not keep him safe here,” Auguste had explained. “I have been advised to send him away.”

Laurent could have gone to Patras. Auguste was on good terms with the Patran King, so it was only natural that he’d want to send his brother there. Yet Auguste had inexplicably chosen Akielos. He’d chosen Damianos.

And now, as he watched Laurent struggle to explain why he wanted to help the boy, Damianos could begin to see there was more to The Little Brat than arrogance and anger. Even if he still drove Damianos mad, even if he never apologized for his sharp words and insults, not everything was bad about him.

“He can’t read,” Laurent repeated.

“A lot of people can’t.”

“But he...”

Damianos waited for him to go on.

“He is not like Aimeric,” Laurent said. “Aimeric can read. Why shouldn’t Dion be taught as well?”

 _Dion_. Damianos stored the name away in his head. “Aimeric is highborn. Dion is not.”

Laurent looked close to stomping his feet. “I know that. I only meant—Dion is nicer. He’d enjoy reading.”

Here Damianos hesitated. “Laurent, those boys… their families do not have the money it takes to buy books. Even if he did learn, he would never be able to afford anything like this,” he said, pointing at the book on the bed.

“But there are other books,” Laurent argued. He looked fierce. Like he’d been entertaining this idea for a while. Would he have said anything if Damianos had not asked? “That is not the problem here.”

“Then what is the problem?”

“That he can’t read and I can’t teach him,” Laurent snapped. It was clear he did not like to repeat himself.

“Well, I could find a tutor for your friend,” Damianos said casually. He eyed Laurent. “Unless he is not your friend? Tutors are only for Princes and their companions.”

Laurent bit his lip. He looked murderous. “He is my friend,” he gritted out.

Damianos could not help but grin. “Aesop was my instructor when I was a child. You could perfect your Akielon with him while he teaches Dion to read.”

“Here?” Laurent asked. “He will be allowed to come _here_?”

Damianos knew he’d have to warn the guards about the boy and also convince his father that it was a good idea to allow a local child to be around the Prince of Vere, but he also knew it was not impossible. His father would not refuse him… _if_ the trip to Kesus went by smoothly.

“Yes,” Damianos said, standing up. He felt the urge to ruffle Laurent’s hair, the way he’d seen Auguste do so many times, yet he did not dare. “Now, why don’t you show me the docks?”

“Stop,” Laurent said quietly. Like a statue, he had not moved even once since they started their conversation. “There is no need for this.”

“No need for what?”

Laurent trailed after him to the hall. “You do not need to indulge me,” he said. “I know you’ve been to the docks before and—and—”

Lifting an eyebrow, Damianos said, “And?”

He had slowed down, allowing Laurent to walk beside him, yet the boy was flushed from the short sprint. A bit out of breath, Laurent said, “You don’t need to come with me.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you?”

Damianos shrugged. “Because I want to. I’d like to meet your friends.”

“I do not have—” Laurent cut himself off. Resigned, he only rolled his eyes. “It will only be Dion on the beach today.”

“Then I’ll only meet him.”

“You’re the Prince,” Laurent insisted.

Damianos laughed. It was strange seeing Laurent so unguarded. “You’re a Prince too.”

“Yes, but I’m the Prince of _Vere_. You’ll scare Dion.”

“All right,” Damianos said, taking pity of Laurent’s sulking expression. “I’ll meet him when your lessons begin then. _But_ I want something in return.”

They had walked all the way to one of the central balconies. Below them, people were hurrying by and talking, all of them oblivious to Damianos and Laurent’s stares. Damianos had not been lying when he’d said it was warm outside, and Laurent’s blush only worsened under the sun.

“What do you want?” Laurent asked. He was looking at the Ambassadors gathered in a corner, purposefully avoiding Damianos’s gaze.

“Write to your brother today,” Damianos said firmly. “It takes more than three weeks for a letter to reach Arles, and it’s already been over a week since his letter came. I reckon he wants to hear from you.” He watched Laurent tense beside him, knuckles going white around the banister. “You could tell him about Dion. I’m sure he—”

“My brother is the King,” Laurent answered. “He has more important things to do than read my letters.”

Damianos could not bite his tongue any longer. “Who has been saying that to you?” he asked, still refusing to believe Auguste was behind this. When he got no answer, he added, “ _Laurent_.”

“No one.”

“It will hardly take him more than one hour to read your letter. Do you think your brother won’t give you one hour of his time?”

Laurent’s eyes stayed fixed on the Ambassadors. “I do not wish to distract him.”

“Distract him?” Damianos frowned. He could not understand these brothers at all. “One single letter won’t—”

“Come up with something else for me to do.”

Damianos realized something had changed in Laurent. He was not sulking anymore and the warm blush he’d been sporting mere minutes ago was gone. When the Ambassadors moved, disappearing into the garden, Laurent’s eyes did not follow them. Vacantly, he stared straight ahead.

“Laurent?”

After a moment, Laurent said, “Yes?”

Damianos relaxed slightly. His fingers had already found the leather pouch he kept on him at all times. Ever since he’d seen Laurent on the floor of his rooms, Damianos carried the salts with him everywhere. Absently, he told himself he’d have to give them to Pallas when he left for Kesus tomorrow. He certainly would not trust Jokaste with this.

“Write to him,” Damianos said again. “I know he wants you to.”

“And how would you know that?”

_I know Laurent will write back to me soon._

Damianos thought of Auguste waiting for a letter that would never come. He knew Laurent was thinking about his brother too, for he had that troubled expression he often wore when Auguste was mentioned. He did not want to tell Laurent he and Auguste were corresponding, at least not yet. It felt like the sort of thing Laurent would misinterpret and twist and, eventually, use against him.

“Because I know your brother loves you.”

Laurent turned away from the balcony so fast Damianos did not have time to react. He was already ten steps away when he stopped and said, “I am going to the beach.”

Damianos watched him go. In Laurent’s rooms, it had felt as though they were making some progress. He knew—even without Auguste’s warnings—that Laurent could be stubborn and difficult when he wanted to be, but they had been getting along. Laurent had seemed excited…

Maybe Laurent was right. Maybe there were more important things to worry about than letters. He thought of Kastor’s face this morning, the fury behind his eyes, the tight line his lips had become, and allowed himself to hate Laurent a little. If the roles were reversed, Damianos knew he would not have received any letters from Kastor. Not even if he’d sent one first.

*

_Many things have happened since you left, and I am not ashamed to admit I have kept some of them from my brother. By the time you read this letter, rumors will have most likely reached Ios and, inevitably, my brother’s ears. Again and again, I find myself abusing your friendship by asking you for one favor after the other. Do not let Laurent obsess over those whispers and accusations, do not encourage him to find out the truth behind them. I sent him away without so much as a guard to protect him and yet he is safer with you than he has ever been by my side. Arles is full of snakes and traitors, some of whom my brother is fond of. He will not understand the reasons behind some of my actions and I have not the means to explain_ —

*

“What are you doing here?” Damianos hissed. He was already on his horse, waiting for Kastor. He did not have time to deal with this. “My brother is on his way.”

Laurent was in his nightwear. It was cold and the shirt he was wearing did not seem to be doing much to keep him warm, for he shivered and trembled like a leaf in the wind. There was something in his hands, something that glittered in the morning sun.

“I have come to see you off,” Laurent said, yawning. He skilfully stroked the horse, scratching behind his ears every now and then. When he had satisfied himself, he shifted his attention back to Damianos. “Take this with you.”

Damianos accepted the gift, at first thinking it was some sort of comb, and then froze when the realization hit him. The golden dagger in his hand felt foreign, its weight unnaturally light. Damianos had always preferred the sword. Although heavy and tiring after a long duel, it made him feel reassured in his own skill. There was no glory in daggers; they were a lesser man’s weapon.

“I am not murdering my brother,” he said sharply, pushing the dagger into Laurent’s hands.

Despite the awkward angle, Laurent pushed it right back. “Take it. If Kastor does not try anything, then at least you will have a sharp knife to slice apples with.”

“Laurent—”

“I have to go.”

The sky turned orange above them. It was only a few minutes past dawn and Kastor would be there any second. Damianos had barely slept through the night, too busy fighting away nervousness. He did not want to feel anxious, and yet the feeling kept coming to him in waves. Damianos pushed it aside once more.

“Take care of yourself,” Damianos said in a hoarse voice. The weight Auguste had put on his shoulders suddenly felt very heavy. “Do not trust anyone but Pallas, not even Jokaste.”

Laurent rolled his eyes. “As if I—”

“Write to Auguste,” Damianos rushed to finish. “One letter. That is all I am asking of you, all I’ll ever ask.”

Laurent opened his mouth to reply—to argue, probably—but the neighing of another horse startled him into silence. He gave Damianos one last look full of questions before disappearing into the palace, just in time to miss Kastor.

“Was that Prince Laurent?” Kastor asked, not quite pleasantly.

“Who else could it be?”

They rode in silence past the stables and the palace gates. Outside, the locals had already started their days, merchants carrying cloth samples and fishermen heading towards the docks. Women stood by the King’s road, watching the two Princes through fluttering eyelashes. Kastor did not even look at them; all were brunette.

“I’ve heard tales about his brother,” Kastor said.

It was not this Damianos wanted to discuss, but he decided it was a small victory. Kastor had begun the conversation and that had to mean something. They could have spent the whole ride in complete silence.

“Such as?” Damianos asked.

His only informant was Nikandros and he had not returned from Delpha yet. Damianos was, as usual, in the dark when it came to gossip. Auguste had warned him about the rumors, but he had not explained anything in his letter and not even Laurent knew what was going on in Vere.

Kastor smiled, eyes fixed on the road ahead. “It seems Auguste is rather fond of trials.”

That surprised Damianos. “Who has he tried?”

“The family physician, for one.”

“Paschal?”

“I do not recall his name,” Kastor said dismissively. His tone suggested it was below him to remember such matters. “Rumor has it the King found poison in his wine one night.”

Damianos frowned. The rising sun was getting into his eyes. “And he suspects the royal physician put it there? It does not make much sense. Surely one of the cooks—”

“He tried the physician for something unrelated to the wine incident.”

“Well, what were the charges against Paschal? Was he found guilty?”

Kastor’s smile widened. _He likes attention_ , Laurent had told him. _He wants to feel important._ “No one knows. He still lives in the palace, so I imagine he was found innocent. Unless Auguste has a habit of surrounding himself with criminals.”

“They have tried to murder him before,” Damianos said, thinking out loud. He wanted to believe Kastor was only trying to make conversation, only trying to be friendly, yet he could not believe it completely. There was something to be gained in exchange for all these secrets. “One of his guards, I believe.”

Kastor laughed. The sound was strange and had a pull to it, forcing Damianos to look at his brother’s face. “The one who supposedly killed himself before they could try him for treason? Damianos, you are so poorly informed in the subject.”

“ _Supposedly_?” Damianos snapped. He was growing tired of Kastor’s contempt and the road ahead was far too long to put up with his jabs in meek silence. “A man either ends his own life or he doesn’t, there is no in-between.”

They reached the outskirts of the city. Kastor’s horse was always three steps ahead of Damianos’s, as though his owner could not bear to ride by his brother’s side. If they kept up this rhythm, they would make it to Kesus before the night fell.

“Some say Auguste is too young to rule Vere,” Kastor went on. “There is a small group of people who’d rather follow Aleron’s brother.”

Damianos had asked Auguste after his uncle, only to receive a shake of the head and a deep frown. No one in the palace mentioned the man, which had always seemed strange to Damianos. For a man who claimed to care so deeply about his family, Auguste sure did not seem to have any love for his uncle.

He had never asked Laurent about it, never had any reason to, but perhaps when he came back it’d be wise to have some of his questions finally answered. After all, hadn’t Jokaste’s little spy said that it was the Prince who had driven his uncle away from court?

But what Kastor was suggesting… It made Damianos’s stomach sink as though he’d swallowed rocks. It was the highest sort of treason. He could not help but think of Laurent, who would not be able to rule until he was of age if his brother died. Laurent, who would have no family left except for his uncle.

“Auguste is a just King,” Damianos said firmly. He did not want Kastor to think he supported such ideas. “And besides, Akielos is Vere’s greatest ally at the moment. Should Auguste fall, there will be war again. Father would not stand idly by while—why are you laughing?”

Kastor kicked his horse; Damianos was catching up to him. “Father will join the most powerful man. Right now, that man is Auguste, but if things were to change…” He laughed. “To be your age again, still green with hope and naivety.”

Damianos wanted to argue. He wanted to say that their father would not side with traitors and King murderers, but he could not. A part of him—one that sounded too much like Laurent—told him it’d be a lie. His father was a good man and an even better King, but he would not risk his life to save Vere from political corruption.

“Is his uncle aware of this?” Damianos asked. He watched Kastor’s profile, the long Akielon nose, the recently trimmed beard. It was like looking in the mirror. “That someone is trying to murder Auguste in his name.”

Kastor scoffed. “Rumor has it he is the one behind it all.”

Damianos had spent the night before tossing and turning in his bed, feeling too hot and too cold at the same time, not being able to properly breathe. He had been scared of the silence of the ride ahead, the void of words and laughter. Right now, staring at Kastor curling lips, Damianos prayed for quiet. He did not want to talk to his brother anymore.

*

_—I will go to Ios when everything has settled here. Winter has always been kinder to Akielos and I wish to see my brother before the year runs out. I trust you will not tell him about my visit or the company I plan to take with me. I have matters to attend in the south of Vere first, but if it all goes well we will see each other again before the last snow of the season. Perhaps Laurent will agree to return with me to Arles by the end of my stay there, although I will not dwell in my own hopes. He seems adamant to be rid of me, and I will not force my tedious presence upon him. By March, the_ —

*

By midday, the sun was high in the sky and glaring angrily at them as though they had wronged it. They were not supposed to stop until they had reached Ellium, but Damianos was tired of riding next to Kastor in silence under the beating sun. He could have stopped by the side of the road to eat the bread and cheese he had had the servants prepare for him for the journey, but Damianos wanted to be away from this terrible quiet for a moment. When he noticed the small village a few miles away, he did not hesitate to ride into it.

Kastor was not happy; he wanted to lead, not follow. “Have you grown tired already?” he asked mockingly. “Or is it a brothel you’re looking for?”

Damianos ignored him. He dismounted and tied his horse to the trunk of a tree, scratching behind the animal’s ears as Laurent had done hours earlier. He was already about to reach the pub when he felt Kastor stomping behind him.

“Where are you going?”

“I want a hot meal,” Damianos answered. He kept walking, ignoring the looks some of the villagers were giving him. Pushing the pub door open, he stepped inside and waited for Kastor to join him. “You should eat something too since you’re already here.”

The place was small and crawling with people. They all turned their heads when Damianos and Kastor walked to the only empty table, all eyes on Damianos’s cloak and the golden pins of their chitons. Soup was served— _The best of the realm_ , the man who attended them swore—and bread was shared. Kastor kept silent through it all, eating as though he was being forced to.

“The future King of Akielos,” he muttered, “eating at a place like this.”

Damianos’s heart beat faster. _Which one of us are you talking about?_ he felt compelled to ask. Instead, what came out of his mouth was, “A King should eat the same food as his people.”

Kastor rolled his eyes. Reaching for more wine, he said, “It is not the food I’m complaining about. It is the location.”

“Where would you live if you could not go back to Ios?” Damianos asked on a whim.

“What sort of question is that?”

“I mean,” Damianos said slowly, “if you could be the Kyros of any—”

“I do not wish to be one,” Kastor interrupted.

Again, Laurent’s words echoed through Damianos’s skull: _He wants to feel important_. What was a Kyros next to the King?

“What do you wish for, then?” Damianos forced himself to ask. He could feel his heart in his throat, trying to climb out of his body. He forced it down with a gulp of wine. “If you could be anything, do anything, what would it be?”

“Does it matter? I am what I am. No amount of wishing or daydreaming will change that.”

“Men need dreams as much as they need food.”

“What would you know about dreaming? All you have ever needed to do was be born,” Kastor said. “Dreams are for fools anyway. A real man takes what he wants and lives with the consequences.”

Damianos was silent for a moment. Around them, people came and went, sat at the large tables or stood against walls. They laughed and whispered, told their own problems out loud and expected advice. Even though the place was full of noise and blabber, Damianos had never felt so alone before.

“Could you?”

Kastor arched an eyebrow. Pushing the empty bowl away, he said, “Could I what?”

“Live with the consequences.”

“I do not know,” Kastor answered tightly. He looked like a thief who had been caught red-handed. “I suppose it depends on how badly I want… whatever it is I want.”

“Father told me once that everything has a cost,” Damianos said. “You do not get something for nothing. To get what you want, you have to know exactly how much you are willing to give up.”

Kastor stroked his beard. He had not looked away from Damianos’s face once. “It is true,” he agreed quietly. “No one can have it all, Damianos.”

“Then why not cherish what is yours already?” Damianos said without thinking.

“You are the one interested in dreams and wants, not me. I do not wish for anything that I have not earned.”

“So you _do_ wish for something, after all.”

“As I’ve said before,” Kastor replied, getting on his feet, “you do not know anything about yearning. You have never wanted for anything because everything is already yours.”

Damianos was aware of the multitude of eyes on them. “Help me understand, brother,” he said. “Explain to me what is like to yearn for something one is not destined to have.”

The wine had loosened his tongue. He should not have said that last bit. Laurent definitely wouldn’t have approved—it was too obvious, too plain. But Damianos did not know how to speak in riddles and euphemisms, he did not know how to lie.

“I can not,” Kastor said in a strange voice. “It would be like describing the sun to a blind man. One could never do the star justice.”

Through the lump in his throat, Damianos said, “One could try.”

Kastor was wrong. Never had Damianos wanted something this badly. Never had he come so close to begging, knowing it would not make much of a difference. He would have traded the high cliffs of Ios, the chance to rule Akielos, anything, for his brother.

He supposed it was the same way for Kastor. A kingdom, or this.

*****

_—how he thinks he is all grown. You will think me mad, but at times I find myself wishing to be younger. If anything, he would be less lonely and I less busy. To be a child again, imagine. ~~I would not be the King and my un~~ My friend, I hope to hear from you soon._

*****

It was a spilled cup of wine that saved Damianos’s life the next day.

The good-bye feast the Kyros of Kesus had put together for them reminded Damianos of the dinners he had eaten at Auguste’s table in Vere—the sweetmeats, the candied pears, the finest mead the south had to offer—and had it not been for the day of riding that awaited him, he would have eaten until he was full and heavy-limbed. Lunch was supposed to be light, yet the man had insisted on seeing them off with enough opulence to be reminded by. He probably wanted to make up for the lack of grain he had been sending to Ios for months.

There was a small girl holding the silver pitcher, pouring wine into the men’s goblets when they asked. Damianos had not been paying too much attention to her, lost in his own thoughts about Kastor and the morning negotiations, but he turned to her as soon as he heard his brother’s yelp.

She was babbling. “I—I—Sorry. I am—I did not mean—”

Kastor stood up, the front of his shirt covered in red wine that looked like washed-out blood, and said, “You fucking idiot.”

Damianos knew what was about to happen. He had seen Kastor strike a slave before. “It was an accident,” he said, trying to appease her. “Let the girl be, brother. Have you not brought any spare clothes?”

“It was a two-day trip,” Kastor snarled. “Why would I bring other clothes?”

Damianos’s head throbbed. He had been fighting a losing battle against his headache since he had woken up and he did not want to hear Kastor complaining anymore. “Give me your shirt,” he instructed.

One of the Lords called to his right, “Perhaps once the feast is over—”

“The feast _is_ over,” Damianos said sharply. “My brother and I are leaving as soon as he is out of those damp clothes.”

“I could offer you one of the finest tunics I own,” another Lord said, looking at Damianos instead of Kastor.

Kastor was fuming. Nothing went unnoticed by him these days. “I do not want your—”

“Kastor,” Damianos interrupted. He did not have the strength to go through this again. The mess of the night before was still hanging over his head. “Let us leave.”

The Kyros wanted to come with them to the stables, tripping over himself with apologies for the slave’s stupidity and promising to have her whipped. At that Damianos stopped his march and faced him. The girl could not have been older than fifteen.

“It was an accident,” he bit out. “What part of _accident_ do you not understand?”

The man did not seem to like being spoken to like that, but he kept his mouth shut and nodded. He was gone a few minutes later, not bothering to offer Kastor a new shirt again.

“Give me your shirt,” Damianos said.

Rolling his eyes, Kastor took it off and handed it over. It was the sort of cotton shirt they used during winter to keep the wind from sneaking past the folds of the chiton. “Are you going to wash it for me? Delightful.”

Damianos ignored him. He was only wearing a cloak over his chiton, so he shrugged it off and tossed it in Kastor’s direction. “I would hate for you to get sick, brother,” Damianos explained.

In reality, he only wanted Kastor to keep quiet for the remaining hours they would be forced to spend together and he knew if Kastor was to ride back to Ios wearing that dirty shirt he would bitch the whole way there. Damianos’s headache would only grow worse if that was the case.

He slid the wet and sticky shirt over his head and mounted his horse, all under the unbelieving eyes of his brother.

“Why are you wearing it? Just ask one of those fools to give you another one.”

Damianos rubbed his temples. “It’s too cold to only wear a chiton and I’d rather die than speak to one of those Lords again. Drape yourself in the cloak and let us _leave_ already.”

The cape was a deep red color, which made Kastor look even more like their father. The golden lion embroidered on the back watched Damianos the whole way out of Kesus, and it was while Damianos was staring back at it that it all happened.

There were only two of them, dressed in tight-fitting clothes that did not seem Akielon, and they were faster on their feet than anyone Damianos had ever seen. They moved as though they were swimming instead of walking, taking huge strides towards Kastor.

The first knife hit the horse in the neck, sending the animal into a panicked strut that did not last very long. In a matter of seconds, Kastor’s horse was on the ground, bleeding out from the wound and neighing in pain.

Kastor had blanched. He was trying to dodge the knives that were being thrown at him by the two dancing figures, and he was not doing a very good job.

Damianos’s feet hit the ground just as one the attackers strode forward, trying to stab Kastor in the chest. Laurent’s dagger burned him where it was stashed away underneath his clothes, as though it was begging to be used.

There was no one to ask for help. The nearest village was miles away and they had not even made it to Ellium yet. Damianos gave up reasoning and sprung into action, fingers numbly finding the handle of the dagger.

“Brother,” Damianos said. He had been watching Kastor’s increasingly paling face. “Stand behind me.”

“I do not—”

With a swift motion, Damianos cut the first man’s throat. Blood splattered the front of his shirt, mixing with the wine stain. Dazedly, he thought of Laurent. Where, Damianos wondered, had Laurent found this dagger? Who had given it to him?

The other man was watching the scene unfold from a few steps away. Clearly, he had not been expecting either of them to put up any resistance, for he seemed not only surprised but also afraid. The horses were not ordinary but the finest breed Akielos could offer and the cape was unmistakable. Red and golden, the lion practically screamed royalty. There was no way these two had not known who Kastor and Damianos were.

Before the man could run, Damianos aimed and threw the dagger at him. It sunk right in the middle of his back, and he fell to the floor on his knees, a cloud of dust gathering around him.

Kastor was breathing heavily behind Damianos and his hand was hot and clammy when he touched Damianos’s arms, trying to hold him back. Damianos shook it off him and walked to the man he had just stabbed.

He was still on his knees, trying to draw in a breath through his mouth, which had already begun to fill with blood.

“Who are you?” Damianos asked.

The man did not reply.

Damianos took a hold of the dagger’s handle and twisted it, sending it deeper into the man’s back. “Why did you attack us?”

The man was writhing like a worm. “Hired,” he managed to gasp through the pain.

“To do what?”

He pointed at Kastor, still standing by himself in the middle of the road. “The King’s son,” he said, blood spilling from his mouth. “Damianos.”

Damianos frowned. “ _I_ am Damianos,” he said. “Who sent you?”

But the man spoke no more. He sagged against Damianos, who was still holding him up using the dagger. A moment later he drew his last breath. His face was still tilted in Kastor’s direction. When Damianos let go of it, the body fell to the ground, unmoving.

Only later it would occur to him that this was the first man he had ever killed.

Now, he turned to Kastor, still draped in his crimson cloak. “They were waiting for us.”

Kastor was as silent as the dead man lying by Damianos’s feet.

“All those knives…” Damianos started. “Not one of them thrown in my direction.”

“Thieves,” Kastor said hoarsely. Was it desperation Damianos heard in his voice? “Traitors.”

Damianos watched him. His trembling hands, the ashen tone of his skin. “The cloak,” he said at last. He could feel the blood of the two men drying all over his hands, turning his fingers sticky and the air around him acrid with the smell of iron. “ _My_ cloak.”

“Brother,” Kastor said.

“They thought you were me.”

A fool would have run. A wiser man would have lied his way through Damianos’s questions. Kastor only stood silent under the scorching midday sun, watching his brother as though they were meeting for the first time.

In a way, they were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies!   
> There is so much stuff going on and I am so excited for you to read the next couple of chapters. There will be so much Laurent/Damen interactions and fluff and fun (but also angst and tears because apparently I am a masochist?) and reunions and finally ANSWERS!!! So many answers and new problems and new questions lmao  
> The next chapter will be up on Tuesday (maybe Wednesday)! The longer the chapter, the longer the wait :(   
> Thank you for reading!


	11. Ten

**Ten**

There were few things Laurent regretted more than telling Damianos he thought of Nikandros as a good man. He had not meant it—after all, he did not even know Nikandros that well—and yet Damianos, always eager to trust those around him, had believed him instantly. Had Laurent known what it would cost him, he would have kept his mouth shut.

“And yet,” Nikandros argued _again_ , “Kastor claims he did not hire those men.”

Damianos’s eyes were set on the dagger lying on the marble table. It had once been golden and shiny, like the collars Laurent had seen some of the slaves wearing, but now it was a rusted brown color. There was crusted blood all over it, and Laurent had to force himself to look away in order to keep his breakfast down.

“What did you expect him to say?” Laurent asked slowly. “He is a traitor, not an idiot.”

Nikandros did not even bother to look at him, keeping his eyes on Damianos, who was still glaring at the dagger as though it had done him some personal offense instead of saving his life.

Laurent was trying to stop himself from saying something he would regret later, but it was becoming increasingly hard to be quiet when Nikandros kept alternating between blatantly ignoring him and disregarding his opinion.

“At this point, a guilty man would have confessed to his crime," Nikandros said. "There is no way out for him, and he knows as well as we do that if he were to speak up, then perhaps the King would—”

“Not cut his head off?” Laurent supplied.

His own head hurt from listening to the brute. Nikandros’s accent was more pronounced than Damianos’s, and he spoke faster and lower, which meant on top of enduring his stupidity, Laurent also had to listen to him very carefully in order to understand the words coming out of his mouth.

"The King would never execute his son without a trial."

“If Kastor has not confessed yet, it is only because he is waiting for something," Laurent explained. "Perhaps he believes the King will show him some mercy."

Damianos glanced at Laurent for the first time since his arrival at the palace. His mouth was curling at the edges, as though he’d heard something amusing. “As you’ve just said, he is not an idiot. My father will not forgive this kind of offense.”

Laurent scoffed. “Offense? You call hiring two Patran assassins to murder you an _offense_?”

“We do not know if they were from Patras,” Damianos argued weakly. “I can barely remember their faces or what kind of clothes they were wearing.”

“You said they were throwing knives at Kastor. That sounds like the kind of trick Patran assassins would—”

“That is not the point,” Nikandros said, cutting Laurent off before he could get to the best part of his theory. “The point is that Kastor has not confessed and we do not have any solid evidence against him. He could not have known the two men would identify you by your clothes, or else he would not have accepted to wear the cloak. In fact, if Kastor wanted to have you murdered, it makes little sense that he would accompany you to Kesus in the first place.”

“It was not Kastor’s idea to go,” Damianos said. “I asked him to. My father wanted me to wait until you returned from Delpha so we could go together.”

But Nikandros seemed determined. “He still could have refused. He _has_ refused you in the past.”

“Your dog is right,” Laurent said in Veretian, only to watch Nikandros’s confused face. "Kastor could have refused to go and then have you killed while you were off with Nikandros. It certainly would make more sense. Everyone knows how skilled you are in combat, how hard to take down. What would have been his excuse if you had died? How would he have explained his own survival?”

Damianos closed his eyes. His chiton was red and brown and black, covered in both blood and mud. He looked like a man who had just emerged from battle, victorious but wounded. Although there were no physical injuries to be tended to—or so the palace physicians had said—Laurent could not overlook the shadows under Damianos’s eyes and the tired slouch of his shoulders. There was grief in his face, an expression that made Laurent deeply uncomfortable, for he could not understand what Damianos was grieving in the first place.

“Laurent,” Damianos said, opening his eyes. “I think you should go back to your rooms now.”

It was not a suggestion, yet Laurent did not move from his seat at the table. The last two days had been bad in a way Laurent did not want to admit, not even to himself. He had not left his rooms once, eating all his meals in bed and sitting by the window to stare at the stars at night. It had been some time since he’d slept so poorly, but he could not imagine going back to his rooms to rest. Not when Nikandros insisted on being an idiot and Damianos insisted on listening to him.

“If it had not been for me,” Laurent snapped, “you would be dead right now.”

Damianos did not correct him. His eyes flickered to the dagger and then back to Laurent’s face. “I know,” he said. “But I need to speak with Nikandros alone for a moment.”

Laurent stayed put. “Why can’t _I_ hear what you have to say?”

“Because it involves your brother,” Damianos replied easily. Despite looking like a commoner, drenched in dirt and sweat, he still spoke with the authority that could only belong to a Prince.

It made Laurent’s blood simmer. He too was a Prince. “All the more reason why I should stay. If you know something about my brother that you have not told me, I want—”

Again, Nikandros cut him off. “Do you think King Auguste is behind this?” he asked Damianos. He did not seem to care Laurent was present.

Had they been standing closer to each other, Laurent would have throttled Nikandros to death.

“My brother would never do such a thing," Laurent spat at him. "He is not a murderer, you complete and absolute imbecile. If Auguste wanted Damianos dead, he could have killed him in Arles with his own hands. My brother would never hire someone to—to—” Laurent could not draw in a proper breath, his anger making him dizzy. If only for a moment, he contemplated throwing the silver cup in front of him at Nikandros’s head. “He would _never_.”

Damianos put his hand on Nikandros shoulder to silence him. He said, “That is not what I meant, Laurent."

“Then what did you mean?” Laurent demanded.

“Auguste asked me not to tell you,” Damianos answered. “He does not want you to worry about what is happening in Vere at the moment. You have a tendency to obsess over—”

"When did my brother ask this of you?"

Damianos looked at Nikandros for a second, as though asking him for help. Ignoring the question altogether, he said, "He is only trying to keep you out of harm's way."

“You have been corresponding with him.”

Damianos’s face gave him away. Sometimes he tried to lie, even though he was awful at it, but this time he did not even bother pretending.

Laurent felt his betrayal like a kick to the stomach, although he knew there was nothing rational about it. Why did it matter if his brother and Damianos wrote to each other? It was not uncommon for friends to do so. Slowly, still staring at Damianos’s face, Laurent realized that it was not Damianos he was angry with, but Auguste.

Auguste had promised there would be no lies between them anymore. Hadn’t that been one of the first things he’d sworn, after? But he had not been truthful, not even in his letter, and now Laurent realized it was not because Auguste was a guarded man, it was not because becoming the King had turned him wary of others. After all, he'd had no trouble putting his trust in Damianos’s hands, giving it away as though it did not mean anything. As though Laurent had not been trying to earn it for years.

No. It had nothing to do with any of that. Uncle had been right: Laurent was not Auguste’s equal, but a nuisance. Something to be shipped off to Akielos when he became too much to handle. All this time, Laurent had thought he had been playing by his own rules, that coming to Akielos had been his own choice, but now, at last, he realized that it was Auguste who held all the power, not him. He had come here trying to spare his brother the burden of taking care of him while simultaneously stopping Kastor from doing anything stupid. Now Laurent saw that the first was nothing but a self-indulgent lie, and the second was another task at which he had failed. 

Had all his victories in chess been a farce, too?

“Laurent,” Damianos began to say.

But Laurent found he could not breathe very well in this room, not with Nikandros and Damianos looking at him this way. Praying that his legs would support him, he stood up and walked away from the table without another word. Pallas was waiting for him outside, smiling down at him like Laurent was some sort of bovine idiot. Who would have thought? Perhaps Pallas was up to something after all.

After he had slammed the door to his rooms on Pallas’s face, Laurent headed to the ugly bed that did not creak when he lay down on it and peeled the bedding off of it. He grabbed the book Auguste had gifted him from under one of the pillows and threw it across the room. It hit the wall, spine bursting, and slid down to the floor. 

Still unsatisfied, Laurent went and picked it up again. The golden threading was coming undone, pages flying away when Laurent thumbed through it. He stopped when he found the page he was looking for—the one with the illustrated snake Damianos had been looking at the other day—and tore it off. The sound felt rewarding, the sort of thing Laurent felt like he had earned. He picked up another page and did the same. And then another.

How many times, Laurent wondered, could one be an absolute fool?

When his moment of rage had passed and Laurent could think again, he picked up one last page from the book. It was the one he had fallen asleep looking at for weeks, the one he liked the most. The drawing was of two joined hands and a rope tying them together—the banner of some faraway nation Laurent did not care about. The margins of the page were wide and empty, almost beckoning. Inspiration struck him so suddenly it left him nauseous.

As he fumbled in his trunk, trying to find the quill he knew was in there somewhere, Laurent thought of Damianos’s words from a couple of days ago. _Write to your brother_ , he’d asked. Sitting on the cold marble floor, quill finally in hand and inkpot spilled before him, he set to do just that.

*

_—and I do not miss Arles at all, not even the grapes. I suppose I do miss someone, but he is no longer there. How do you like this paper I am writing on? The book was not as exciting as I thought it would be and so I took some liberties with it. Hopefully, you will not mind. The drawing is simply hideous and since I have grown tired of staring at it, I have decided to send it to you. As you once told me, I have always been particular about my readings and this is not—_

*

The sun had already set when Damianos came to find him.

He did not say anything at first, taking in the state of the room—the scattered pages, the spilled black ink that looked like blood against the marble tiles, the rumpled bedding—and sighed. Walking towards the bed, Damianos made sure not to step on any of the papers covering the floor. Laurent thought he looked ridiculous doing so, like a bear tiptoeing around its own cave, but he did not say it aloud. He did not feel like speaking yet.

“Why did you do this?” Damianos asked softly. He was no longer wearing his bloodied chiton but a clean white tunic instead. The mattress dipped under his weight when he sat down next to Laurent. “I thought you liked that book.”

“Go away,” Laurent heard himself saying.

He had been fighting it all day, but there was a sort of pressure building inside of him, pushing and insisting to be let free. In a way, Laurent had missed it. He did not want Damianos’s stupid salts or to have this stilted conversation. He wanted to drift away into that nothingness that would not stop calling for him.

Damianos looked down at Laurent’s hands and frowned. He reached out and touched the black pads of his fingers, rubbing at them until the ink came off. “Have you been writing?” he asked in that stupid voice he had taken to using around Laurent.

“Does it matter?”

“Nikandros did not mean to offend you,” Damianos said slowly. “He was only trying to understand. I would never think Auguste had anything to do with what happened.”

Laurent continued to stare at the wall.

After a moment, Damianos added, “I never thanked you for the dagger. You saved my life.”

“And you saved Kastor’s. I should not have underestimated your stupidity.”

“I know you’re upset, but I can’t understand why. Auguste and I are only trying to—”

“I do not want to hear it.”

Damianos ignored him. “There is nothing wrong with the two of us corresponding. I have not even answered his letter yet.”

“If you truly thought that, you would have mentioned it. What is done in secret is never honorable,” Laurent said. No matter how intently he stared at the wall, he could not let go of himself. He needed to get Damianos to leave. “You said my brother forbade you from telling me things, but I must say I never quite took you for the kind of man others like to mount. It must have been your height that confused me.”

Damianos ignored his jabs. “Your brother and I are friends, nothing more. He did not forbid me from telling you anything, he only asked me not to. There is a difference between the two, Laurent.”

“Go away,” Laurent said for the second time.

But Damianos refused to move. “What you did here today was foolish,” he said and Laurent was too tired to analyze exactly how he was saying it. If he was being scolded, Laurent did not care. “You will regret it in the morning.”

Desperate to stop talking about the book and his room, Laurent said, “What do you want from me now?”

At least Damianos had the decency to look ashamed. “I do not want—”

“You do,” Laurent said. “Or else you would not have come. Unless another letter from my brother has arrived and he is asking you to spend another night watching me sleep.”

“He never asked me to do that.”

The wall in front of him blurred the tiniest bit. “Did he not ask you to look after me?”

Damianos shifted, uncomfortable. “He was only—”

“What else did he ask you to do? Make sure I ate and slept?”

This time Damianos did not try to lie.

“I suppose I should have seen it,” Laurent concluded. He did not feel betrayed or angry anymore. Even those feelings were slipping away from him, like sand seeping through his fingers at the beach. “It has always been his friendship you were after, not mine.”

“I thought you did not care about having friends,” Damianos said. “Least of all about having _me_ as one.”

And Laurent did not care, not really. He had never had any friends except for Auguste, and he’d never needed them. The boys he played with at the beach and under the docks were nothing but a distraction, the kind of indulgence Laurent should never have allowed himself to have in the first place. If he had steered clear from the beach, ignoring Damianos’s requests, perhaps none of this would have happened.

The whole point of coming to Ios had been to keep Kastor from doing exactly what he’d done today. Laurent felt the shame of his failure like a knife to the gut, twisting and sinking deeper into him with every moment that passed. He had underestimated Kastor’s ambition, trusting Damianos too blindly. _He loved me once_ , Damianos had said, and Laurent had thought he could get Kastor to do it again. He’d been wrong.

Craning his neck to the side to try and get rid of some of the stiffness that had fallen over him, Laurent said, “I do not. It was simply an observation. Now, tell me what it is you want so I can be rid of your presence.”

There was a pause during which neither spoke. It was brief but heavy, loaded with all the things they were not saying, and Laurent could not help but wish Damianos would not answer his question. From here he could hear the waves crashing and the wind howling wildly outside. If he could only have some minutes of quiet on his own, he could close his eyes and let the sound lull him away from this place.

“I am going to the dungeons to talk to Kastor,” Damianos said, “and I want you to come with me.”

“No,” Laurent said dully. “Ask Nikandros to join you.”

“Nikandros is my greatest friend,” Damianos admitted. “He is a great commander, too. But it is not his advice I need now. Had it not been for you, I would be dead.”

“You would be,” Laurent said, silently pleased at the admission. “Yet Kastor can not kill you while tied to a chair in one of the cells. I am sure you will be fine. Take the dagger with you and be on your way.”

“You have always been one step ahead of him,” Damianos said. Now it sounded like he was begging, which made Laurent want to laugh. “I am asking you to come with me because you understand him better than I ever have.”

Laurent did not feel flattered by Damianos’s words. To understand a man was to see oneself in him, and Laurent did not want to think that he and Kastor had anything in common.

“The morning you left for Kesus you told me all you would ever ask of me was a letter to my brother,” Laurent said, purposefully ignoring everything else Damianos had told him. “I have already complied, and if you are a man of your word you will not ask anything else of me.” He paused, for a second unsure of how much he wanted to hurt Damianos. In the end, his anger won and he said, “Unless Jokaste was wrong and you are nothing but an oath breaker.”

“Laurent,” Damianos said warningly. They were yet to discuss Jokaste’s request.

It reminded Laurent of all those times Jord had looked at him and called him _Your Highness_. Thinking about Jord did not help, and now Laurent was desperate to get Damianos out of his rooms. He was confident Kastor would not speak, not even to defend himself, and so the whole trip to the cells and back would hardly take more than a few minutes.

“Let us go then,” Laurent said. “The sooner you realize your brother won’t confess to his crimes the better.”

“Should we speak to Jokaste first?” Damianos asked, getting on his feet when Laurent did. “Hypermenestra is staying with her in her rooms.”

“I have already spoken to her.”

Jokaste had been the first person Laurent had turned to when he saw Damianos riding into the palace, drenched in blood and with Kastor mounted on the same horse. Unlike all the other times they had spoken to each other, Jokaste had not played any games with Laurent. Her cheeks had remained dry; whatever love she held for Kastor obviously did not run too deep.

Damianos tiptoed around the scattered pages again in order to make it to the door, following Laurent’s lead. “Did she say anything useful?”

“She told me Kastor did not do it, but her word scarcely means anything at this point.”

“If she had known, she would have warned me,” Damianos argued once they had stepped out of the room and into the hall. “Wasn’t trusting her the whole point of our deal?”

Pallas was nowhere to be seen. Either Damianos had told him to go before entering Laurent’s rooms or he had gone away on his own after Laurent had shut the door on his face. Whatever the case, Laurent was glad not to see him. Pallas enjoyed smiling far too much for Laurent’s liking.

“There is a small chance she knew about Kastor’s plans and decided not to tell us,” Laurent said. “Or maybe she is telling the truth and she had no idea Kastor had hired those men.”

“ _Or_ Kastor is not behind any of this,” Damianos said swiftly. “That is still a possibility.”

Laurent stopped walking, forcing Damianos to stop too. “You do not mean that,” he said. He had not been sure before, but now he heard the uncertainty in Damianos’s voice, loud and clear. Damianos did not believe his own words. “You think he is guilty.”

“I do not know what I believe anymore.”

“Something happened in your little trip then,” Laurent said, resuming his walk. He wanted to be done with this as soon as possible. “Did he say anything suspicious?”

They had made it down the marble stairs when Damianos finally deigned to answer. Looking at him, Laurent realized Damianos had not bathed since the incident, but simply changed out of his clothes. There was dried blood in his hair, turning his already dark curls a shade darker and taking away their gloss. It reminded Laurent of Auguste’s hair, caked in blood and dirt from the battle, the morning he came back victorious to Arles.

“He called me brother,” Damianos said. “He had not called me that in years.”

“That is hardly proof of his guilt.”

Damianos looked away. “I suppose it is not,” he said, not sounding convinced in the slightest.

*

_—to see. The ocean was and is horrible. There is nothing beautiful about it, not that I have noticed. I hope that when I leave here I will never be forced to see it again. Not with you or with anyone else. As for the—_

*

The cell Kastor was being held in was guarded by three men, and none of them looked familiar to Laurent. Damianos dismissed them with a wave of his hand, making sure they were gone before striding into the narrow hall that led to Kastor’s new chambers.

The dungeons were underground, carved into a type of stone that was not white and beautiful as the rest of the Akielon palace, but black and dull and horribly damp. The air tasted foul and Laurent had to force himself to breathe through his mouth despite the taste, for the smell was even worse. There were no sounds except for their own footsteps, which meant not even the ocean could be heard from here. Laurent shuddered; this felt like a fate worse than death.

“Kastor,” Damianos said.

He had stopped walking to lean his back against the wall. Thick iron bars separated him from his brother, who was also standing and leaning against the wall of his cell. Unlike Damianos, Kastor had not been offered a change of clothes, and he still wore his chiton with specks of dried blood on it. Judging by the scowl on his face, he did not seem happy to see either Damianos or Laurent there.

“Have you come here to gloat?” Kastor asked.

Laurent rolled his eyes. He had not come here for the pitiful monologue that was sure to follow. Before Damianos could answer Laurent put up his hand to silence him. Surprisingly, it worked, and Damianos did not speak. Kastor stared at them, amused by their silent exchange.

“Did you hire those men to murder your brother?” Laurent asked in his most bored voice. “It is a simple question. A nod will suffice.”

Apparently, Kastor did not understand. Turning to Damianos, he said, “Are you hiding behind a child now?”

“He is,” Laurent answered. He walked to the bars and stood directly in front of Kastor, ignoring the way his heart was slamming against his ribs. “Your brother is not very bright, as you surely must have noticed. To be honest, I can sometimes understand why you wish to see him dead. He is the definition of aggravating.”

“I want to speak to my brother alone.”

Damianos, who had been watching the scene unfold in silence, looked down at the ground. His hands were balled into fists. _Half-brother_ , Laurent thought and smiled.

“Here is what I fail to understand,” Laurent said. He wanted to pace, something that often helped him think, but there was not enough room to do so. He bit the inside of his cheek instead. “Why accept the cloak? If you knew they were coming for Damianos, why not refuse to wear his clothes? I have tried to excuse the other flaws in your plan by reminding myself that not everyone possesses the wits to commit crimes _and_ avoid getting caught. Yet I can not find any reason why you would ride out of Kesus draped in Damianos’s cloak if you had known what was going to happen.”

Kastor arched an eyebrow. “Other flaws?” he asked, sounding vaguely offended. It was clear he had not found any.

It was Damianos who answered. “If you had hired those men, you would not have accepted my offer to come to Kesus. It would have raised too many questions.”

“Damianos is a better soldier than you are,” Laurent explained, taking secret joy in the way Kastor’s face clouded. “There is no way you would have lived and he would have died. Not unless you had left him there to fend for himself, which would also have been considered treason.”

“Then why am I being held under custody?” Kastor snapped. He strode forward and clasped the iron bars tightly. His dark knuckles turned cream-colored. “If you know it was not me who did it, why am I still—”

“Because we do not know that,” Laurent said calmly. “You still have not answered my question.”

“You have no evidence against me and yet you treat me like a dog who bit its owner,” Kastor replied bitterly. “Why should I answer your questions? You will not believe me either way.”

“In my opinion, you were lucky this happened while the King was away. Had Theomedes been here, I do not think your head would still be sitting between your shoulders. With or without evidence against you.”

A fat rat scurried past Laurent’s feet, its tail tickling his ankle. Laurent’s stomach spasmed. He could not believe he had allowed Damianos to drag him out of bed for this. And what had it all been for? Kastor would not confess, just as Laurent had known he wouldn’t.

Laurent’s anger had not abandoned him completely yet. There was something about the way Kastor kept looking at Damianos that fueled all the resentment Laurent had been harvesting for hours.

For a sickly long moment, he felt himself closer to Kastor than to Damianos. After all, what had Damianos done to earn Auguste’s confidence? It was a poor parallel, Laurent knew, for the right to the throne was a birthright, not to be earned with skill or honor. The Akielon throne and Auguste’s trust were not equal. And yet…

“I did not hire them,” Kastor said into the tense silence.

“No one would benefit from Damianos’s death more than you.”

Kastor shared a look with Damianos over Laurent’s head. “Is this why you’ve brought him? This spoiled brat does not know me, has never even spoken to me, and yet you let him treat me like this?”

Damianos held his gaze. “You have done this to yourself.”

“It would have happened sooner or later,” Laurent said. “I must say you’ve surprised me. Patran assassins?” He scoffed. “I could have sworn you’d enjoy poison more. Especially on your father.”

Kastor’s face gave nothing away, a trick he’d probably learned from his wife. “I will not confess to a crime I did not commit.”

“Then confess what you _have_ done.”

“I have not—”

“You have been sabotaging your father’s attempts at strengthening the kingdom. You have turned the Council against Damianos and bought the affections of guards and noblemen with favors.” Laurent yawned behind his hand. “I could go on if you’d like.”

“Brother,” Kastor tried again, looking at Damianos. “I did not do this.”

“Then tell me who did,” Damianos said. “If it was not you, then who?”

The silence stretched between them, widening their distance. Laurent felt uncomfortable in it as if he was witnessing something he shouldn’t have. The cold down here was sharp and brutal, and Kastor was only wearing a cotton chiton. He had not been allowed to keep Damianos’s red cloak, yet he did not shiver or tremble. Kastor stood his ground, knowing he would still lose. At that moment, Laurent admired him.

“I did not believe he would come through,” Kastor said slowly. “Not after I… after what happened at the palace with King Auguste.”

Laurent stiffened. As he’d done with Nikandros, Laurent would not let Kastor slander his brother’s name. “What are you talking about?”

“While we were in Vere I received a letter,” Kastor said. “A child gave it to me in the gardens of the palace. At first, I believed it to be a joke, some sort of trick the Veretian court wanted to play on me.”

“What did the note say?” Damianos asked. He had moved away from the wall, standing just a step away from Laurent. If there was hope in his voice, Laurent did not hear it.

Kastor clenched his jaw. It looked as though he would not answer, but then the muscles of his neck slacked slightly. “It said something about a deal. _A head for a head_ ,” he quoted in Veretian. “There were instructions to be followed.”

Laurent did not want to hear this anymore. There was a memory coming to the surface of his mind, something he did not want to remember. He fought to keep it away, trying to smother it with other thoughts, but it all proved to be futile. It rose in him like the tide, steadily fast and uncontrollable. 

Damianos was frowning. Laurent could hear it in his voice when he spoke again. “What sort of instructions?”

“Swear to me you will let me live,” Kastor said. “Swear it and I will tell you all I know.”

A hysterical cackle erupted from Laurent. “He is not the King. He can’t promise you anything,” he said and his voice broke towards the end. He could feel Damianos’s eyes on him, watching him lose control.

And then Damianos’s hands were on his shoulders, grounding him. Their weight and warmth were something to focus on, and so Laurent did not ask him to remove them. A part of Laurent was scared that if Damianos let go, he would simply float away to never return.

“What were the instructions?” Damianos repeated. He was no longer asking but demanding to know.

Still, Kastor fought. “Brother,” he said again. Suddenly Laurent understood what Damianos had meant earlier. Coming out of Kastor’s mouth, the word sounded wrong. “I have told you the truth. It was not me who—”

“But you know who hired them,” Damianos said and his voice was like the sharpest steel. “You did not know when or how it was going to happen, but you knew someone was coming after me.”

Kastor pressed his forehead against one of the bars. “I did not think he would come through. You have to believe me.”

“I will not ask again.”

Laurent bit the inside of his cheek again, this time viciously.

“I was to poison a certain horse,” Kastor said after what felt like an eternity of silence. “He wanted someone from the royal family to do it because no one else was allowed into those stables.”

“It was you,” Laurent croaked. Laughter had turned to ashes in his mouth. “You tried to murder my brother. The day of the hunt—that was you.”

Kastor said nothing.

Laurent tried to shrug off Damianos’s hands to get to Kastor, but Damianos would not let go of him. One moment his hands were on Laurent’s shoulders, and the next he had his arms around Laurent’s waist, holding him back. The sort of anger he’d felt that day in the gardens with Aimeric came back to him now, strong and terrifyingly similar.

“Let go of me,” Laurent screeched, kicking at Damianos. “Let go, you filthy—”

“Laurent.”

“The sword,” Laurent said frantically. He wanted to hurt Kastor, to watch him writhe like the worm he was. “You’ll get the sword. He will cut off your head, he will. He _will_ and—and—”

“That’s enough,” Damianos said firmly. He squeezed Laurent one more time and then relaxed his grip, not letting go. “Let Kastor explain.”

Kastor laughed in response. “What a feral child,” he said. When his eyes met Laurent’s, there was nothing but disgust in them. “Are the rumors true then? Is that why you’re so upset?”

Damianos looked at him pleadingly. The fool. “Kastor, don’t.”

“Veretians call us barbaric,” Kastor said. “And yet they do not frown upon their Prince spreading for his own brother in bed.”

Damianos dragged him away. No matter how much Laurent thrashed and kicked and even bit him, Damianos did not let go. By the time they had made it out of the dungeons, Laurent could barely breathe. His heart was drumming in his ears, the blood rushing everywhere at once. The bile in his mouth tasted sour; soon he would be throwing up.

“Laurent,” Damianos said against his hair. He had managed to slide to the floor, forcing Laurent down with him. “You need to stop.”

“He said—”

“I know,” Damianos said. “I know what he said.”

But that was not what Laurent wanted to hear. The edges of his vision were starting to blur, but it was not because of his tears. It had been a while since Laurent had cried and he was not about to do so now. No matter how much he felt like it.

“The person who wrote that note,” Damianos said. He paused, deep in thought, and continued to hold him back even though Laurent was no longer struggling to get away. “He would have benefited greatly from your brother’s death. If he asked Kastor to do it, surely he wanted an alliance between them. Otherwise, why not hire a sellsword to do it? He wanted Kastor to owe him.”

Laurent knew Damianos was waiting for him to say something, either confirming his theory or making fun of it, but Laurent did not speak. He was already beginning to move away from words.

_A head for a head._

“Laurent?” Damianos asked from somewhere. His voice came and went like the sea. Laurent heard him as though he was underwater. “Lau—”

_That is how a deal works, little one._

Letting go at last felt good. If there was shouting or whispering, Laurent could not hear it. He did not want to, either. The all too familiar prickling of his eyes was welcome, and so was the numbing cold that was starting to spread through him. He felt his head loll to the side, his cheek connecting with something warm—Damianos’s chest, most likely—and then he felt no more.

*

_Do not bother writing to me again. I am sure you are incredibly busy, and since Damianos and you are already corresponding it only seems fair that you should write only to him. He will let me know if there are any pressing matters I need to be made aware of, but I highly doubt that will be the case. I hope your friendship continues to flourish. If anything, it makes the alliance between the two kingdoms appear stronger and so it is—_

*

“Eat,” Damianos told him, pushing the pear into Laurent’s hand.

Laurent looked down at it, felt its mushiness under the pads of his fingers, and let go of it. The pear rolled away from him and towards the far end of the bed, coming to a stop when Damianos caught it right before it fell to the floor.

Instead of giving it to Laurent again, Damianos grabbed a knife from the wooden tray he had brought to Laurent’s rooms and began to peel the fruit. His hands were stupidly big for the task, and yet he was not clumsy. He held the knife with the elegance only practice could provide. It made no sense to Laurent; peeling and slicing were a servant’s job.

“My hands are clean,” Damianos said casually, under Laurent’s gaze. “I washed them while you were sleeping. Thoroughly.”

He held a pear slice to Laurent’s mouth. It smelled sweet and ripe, and Laurent could not remember the last time he had eaten. Leaning forward, he took a bite without thinking.

This was the sort of thing Auguste used to do for him before the war, back when their parents were alive and busy. Laurent hated the sticky mess that eating most winter fruits entailed, and so he would convince Auguste to peel and slice them for him. He could have asked any of the servants, for it was their job, but Laurent liked Auguste’s method better. He’d sometimes carve shapes into the fruits, funny faces, and animals. He’d feed Laurent like this sometimes, too. Usually under the oak tree in the gardens, the one that had withered and died by the time Auguste had been crowned King.

But there was no oak tree here, not even a garden, and this was not Auguste. Laurent supposed it should have felt humiliating—it was the sort of thing he had been trying to avoid all these months—but instead of calling Damianos out on it he simply leaned forward again and took another bite. Hunger was making him both bold and foolish at the same time.

Three bites later he remembered he had been fed like this during the war too, only not by his brother. He had even had wine poured gently down his throat, sweeter than the mead the Akielon King had brought as a gift when he’d gone to Arles. When the memory passed, Laurent turned his face away from Damianos, who was offering him another piece of fruit.

Damianos sighed. “I thought you liked pears.”

“Is your father back?”

“We are not doing this,” Damianos said in the same voice he has used on Kastor. “You need to eat.”

Laurent ignored him. “Is your father back?”

“Laurent.”

“Is Kastor—”

“It has only been a few hours,” Damianos said, not too pleasantly. There was blood in his hair; he had not bathed yet. “Stop _doing_ that.”

Laurent stilled. “What?”

“Biting your cheek,” Damianos said. “I can see you doing it. Stop.”

“It is my cheek,” Lauren snapped. He kicked the tray off the bed and watched the silver knife and the rest of the pear land on the floor. “I believe it is mine to bite if I want to.”

Unfazed, Damianos said, “You will get a sore.”

“I already have one.”

It was not a lie. Paschal had looked at it before Laurent left, and he’d advised him to stop whatever he was doing to prevent the skin from healing properly. In exchange for Paschal’s word that he would not tell Auguste about it, Laurent had promised him to stop, and he’d been managing just fine until today.

They were quiet for a moment. The room was dark, but unlike the night Damianos had spent watching Laurent sleep, this time there was a full moon outside. It illuminated everything mockingly, forcing him to see it all.

“You know who sent that letter to Kastor,” Damianos said. He looked at Laurent through the dark thickness of his eyelashes. “If I was able to figure it out, there is no way you have not.”

“I know,” Laurent said, expecting the words to burn his mouth. When they didn’t, he spoke again. “But it must be a mistake.”

Damianos’s eyes softened. Pity did that to men. “Laurent,” was all he said.

“He is not a murderer. He would never hurt Auguste or me.”

“Is this what I sounded like when I was defending my brother against your accusations?”

Laurent tried to hit him, but Damianos caught him by the wrist. “Kastor is a traitor.”

“So is your uncle,” Damianos said and his words cut Laurent so deeply they might as well have been knives. He tightened his grip on Laurent’s wrist. “He has conspired with my brother against Auguste and me. You are smart, Laurent. You know he—”

“Do not patronize me,” Laurent snarled. “And do not speak to me of treason. Why should we believe a single word that comes out of the bastard’s mouth? It is obvious to me he is only trying to slither his way out of his punishment.”

“Kastor gave us no names, yet you and I arrived at the same conclusion.” Damianos let go of Laurent’s wrist but continued to watch him intently. He was waiting for Laurent to lash out again. “With Auguste gone, your uncle will rule until you are of age. He wants Kastor to rule Akielos. You told me once he was easier to control. Perhaps your uncle knows this, too.”

“It is a mistake. None of this would have happened if Auguste had not—” Laurent stopped himself. In order to do so, he’d bitten through the skin of his cheek hard enough for blood to seep past his lips. He licked them, stomach clenching painfully at the taste of iron and pears. “There is no evidence against him.”

“Kastor kept the letter, Laurent.”

“It is not signed.”

Damianos let the surprise he was feeling flood his face. “How do you know that?”

Laurent stared at the pear on the floor. It had already started to turn brown. That was exactly how Laurent felt now—like his skin had been peeled off and he was starting to rot. He did not answer Damianos’s question. What was there to say anyway?

He did not want to speak about the notes Uncle used to slip him during dinner when Auguste was not paying attention, how there was never a signature at the bottom. Laurent did not want to sit here and explain how he would toss them into the fire when he was done reading them, watching the paper turn black, grey smoke rising from it. He did not want to remember Auguste’s face when he’d found one of them hidden under Laurent’s mattress—the only note Laurent had not been quick enough to dispose of.

“You have nothing against him,” Laurent finally forced himself to say. “ _Nothing_. Your brother’s word is worth less than a beggar’s plea. When the King returns, he will cut Kastor’s head off and that will be the end of it all.”

Damianos stared at him, unblinking. “Most likely,” he said. “And Auguste will do the same to your uncle once he finds out where he’s hiding.”

Laurent tried to kick him in the stomach, but the angles were all wrong. Damianos had the upper hand and he took it, grabbing Laurent’s ankle and twisting it to the point where even breathing felt painful. He pinned both of Laurent’s wrist above his head with his free hand and held them there, pressing him down into the mattress like one of Paschal’s desiccated butterflies.

“Do you want your uncle to succeed?” Damianos asked cuttingly. “Is that it? You want to rule and you think your uncle will keep the throne warm for you until you are ready.”

Laurent spat on his face with as much force as he could muster. “Shut up, stupid beast.”

Damianos did not move away. Laurent’s spit was running down his cheek like a tear. “How can you be so stupid? Do you think he will not get rid of you too when the time comes?”

“Shut up,” Laurent said, trying to knee Damianos in the stomach. “Shut up, shut up, shut—”

“Perhaps your uncle should have asked _you_ to feed Auguste’s horse those wild berries. You would have done it, wouldn’t you? How good is your aim with the spear? Go ahead, answer me.”

Laurent’s hands were growing numb. He could barely feel his fingers. “Let go of me,” he said. “Let _go_. You’re hurting me.”

Damianos obeyed. Sitting back on the bed, he watched silently as Laurent rubbed at his wrists to get the blood flowing again. He wiped the spit off his face with the back of his hand, so quietly he might as well not have been breathing.

“Why did your uncle leave Arles?”

“I do not have to answer your questions,” Laurent said, jaw jutted out. “If you want to accuse me of treason, do so. I’d rather share a cell with Kastor than spend another minute here with you.”

Damianos tilted his head to the side. His curls were stiff, the dried blood preventing them from swaying the way they usually did. “Do you know where he is right now? Did he tell you?”

“Of course not,” Laurent said and regretted it almost instantly when he saw Damianos’s deprecating smile.

“You and I are the same,” Damianos said as calmly as one would talk about the weather or the food being served at dinner. “We have cared too much about people who cared very little about us.”

Laurent trembled. “My uncle loves me.”

“Why not take you with him, then?”

“He—I am the Prince. I can not simply—”

“You can. You came here, after all.”

“Auguste would not have let me go with him,” Laurent said, but the excuse sounded weak even to his own ears.

Damianos noticed it too, for he said, “Why not write to you then?”

“Auguste would not allow it.”

“Did he even try? He managed to send a letter to Kastor in secret, after all.” Damianos stood, making the bed creak. Laurent had never hated a sound so much before. “As it turns out, I’m not the only one who’s been a fool. Be glad, Laurent. At least you are thirteen years old, that’s the right age to be an idiot.”

“Go away,” Laurent said. “Go _away_.”

Looking around for the first time since he’d woken up, Laurent realized the room had been cleaned. There were no ink splatters on the white marble floor, no ripped pages everywhere. It was as though nothing bad had ever happened in there, as though it had all been nothing but a nightmare. But Laurent knew better. The idea of Damianos on his knees, picking up after Laurent’s mess, left him feeling vaguely sated.

“I asked Auguste once why he refused to speak of your uncle,” Damianos said, standing by the bed. “He would not tell me.” There was a pause, a horrible silence that echoed around the room and made Laurent’s ears ring. Then, Damianos’s voice cut through it. “I’d like to think I know your brother well enough by now to know he would not do anything to hurt you.”

In Laurent’s chest, his heart fluttered. “What Kastor said about my brother and I… it wasn’t true.”

Damianos did not look away from Laurent’s face. “I never thought it was,” he said uneasily. “What I meant is that if it was Auguste who sent your uncle away, then he must have known of his treason.”

“My brother did not send him away,” Laurent said quietly. Auguste had wanted him publicly flogged and executed, not _removed_. There simply had not been enough time. “And it was not—he did not think him a traitor.”

“Do you doubt me?” Damianos asked. “I have nothing to gain from accusing your uncle. Despite what you may think, I know my brother. He’s telling us the truth.”

“I thought you’d said I understood him better than you did,” Laurent said through the thick fog of his numbness. “Kastor is only trying to make himself look better.”

“Better?”

“Your father would never kill him for trying to—” Laurent paused; he could not say the words. “In Kastor’s version, he has not actually murdered anyone.”

“But he’s tried to,” Damianos argued. “He confessed to acting against the alliance, breaching the peace treaty. He tried to murder your brother in his own home.”

“But he _failed_. It is the crime committed against you that matters here, not the poisoning of a horse. The King will have his head for that, not because of Jord’s broken legs.”

“You do not know Kastor the way I do,” Damianos said.

“And you do not know my uncle the way I do,” Laurent snapped. “He’d never—”

“How can you be so sure? Your brother hates him. He’s forbidden everyone in the palace from speaking of him. Surely he must have noticed something about him that you have not.”

Laurent looked around him for something to throw at Damianos, but there was nothing left on the bed. “You’re a fool. Kastor is lying. He’s only trying to avoid the sword.”

“You told me once that the thing Kastor likes the most is to feel important,” Damianos said in a low voice. “You were right. So why speak lies that make him look like an incompetent fool? At least if he admitted to hiring the Patran assassins, it would not be his fault they did not succeed.”

“It would,” Laurent said stubbornly. “Perhaps they were cheap and inexperienced, and Kastor simply failed to notice. I would not put it past your brother to be even thicker than you.”

Damianos was quiet for a moment. “I think I have always known the truth about my brother,” he said in a strange voice. “I only chose not to see it because I loved him. I still do.”

“Which is what you are doing now. You are defending him because you do not want him to die.”

“He will die,” Damianos said calmly, “no matter what I do. My father will not believe him. You know that as well as I do.”

Laurent did. He’d only been hoping Damianos had not noticed. “Perhaps Kastor does not know that.”

“He knows.”

“You can not be sure of it. You can not be sure of anything.”

Damianos tilted his head to the side, something he often did when Laurent amused him. “I can,” he said. “And I am.”

“Then leave,” Laurent said. “If you will not listen to me, why are you still here?”

“You have not asked to see the letter.”

“I do not wish to see it,” Laurent replied with all the dignity he had left in him. Admittedly, it was not very much. “I will not believe a traitor’s last attempt to keep himself alive.”

“It took me two strangers’ deaths to realize you were right about Kastor,” Damianos said. “I only hope it will not be your brother’s that makes you realize I am the one who’s right now.”

“Leave.”

This time Damianos did as he was told. Once he had gone and the door was closed again, Laurent pressed his cheek against the cool mattress and watched what some minutes ago had been a perfectly white pear. Damianos had not bothered to pick anything up from the floor, not even the silver knife.

A fly came, and then another. When one of them landed on his arm, tickling the skin there, Laurent did nothing about it. He might as well have been dead.

*

_—became bored halfway through reading your letter. I did not even finish it. Hopefully, the ones you will write to Damianos from now on will not be as long. He does not seem like the type of man who enjoys reading._

_Sincerely, ~~~~_

_Laurent._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! This chapter was so long (SORRY), but at least I can finally say that we're done with the most boring parts of the story. I find what comes next much more interesting and fast-paced, so I'm excited for you to read that! Also, smaurent deserved to throw a temper tantrum, okay? In all seriousness, anger issues and aggressiveness are some of the symptoms of PTSD, especially in children (just trying to say I did my research lmao) and Laurent does have quite a temper in canon, so it all adds up to me.  
> There's a quote here from PG but I changed it up a little for obvious reasons ("What Govart said about my brother and I... it wasn't true." - "I never thought it was," said Damen, uneasily.)  
> Next chapter will be up on Saturday/Sunday! Thank you for your never-ending kindness. Please stay safe.


	12. Eleven

**Eleven**

Winter in Akielos was cruel and unforgiving, but not the way Laurent had thought it would be. Olive trees did not lose all their leaves and the ocean did not freeze over. Such were the things Laurent had been expecting, for in the north it was not unusual for snow and ice to make early appearances by that time of the year, but as patiently as Laurent waited for them, they did not come.

The waves grew taller and bolder, licking at the docks with a hunger that surprised Laurent and terrified him in equal amounts. He had not been down to the beach since Damianos had returned, but he liked to sit by the window and watch the boys run races and play knucklebones. He could see them perfectly from his rooms, and what he could not hear he simply made up in his head. This too was an indulgence, but it was one Laurent could not give up. It was nice to know there was still laughing and singing in the world, even if he was not a part of it.

Theomedes arrived before the first downpour. Laurent had sat by his window all night, knowing that before dawn broke he would see the King of Akielos and his men riding into the palace grounds without any idea of what awaited them inside, but when he finally saw them Laurent felt no excitement or relief. He watched the King intently—the reckless ease with which he dismounted his horse, the pats on the back he gifted his guards, the calmness of his stroll—and felt envious. Theomedes’s ignorance felt like something Laurent wanted for himself. To be able to forget, even for one second, would have been a blessing.

Damianos greeted his father at the gates, preventing him from going inside with the rest of the men. He was wearing what appeared to be one of his finest tunics, the hem adorned by a red thread and the faintest of golden glimmers. From the window, Laurent could not hear their conversation, but he had a perfect view of Theomedes’s face—its falling and sagging and eventual tightening. By the time they had both made it inside, Laurent did not envy the King any longer.

*

Jokaste wore her hair in a complicated plait, the sort that did not drape over her shoulder but rather looked like a golden circlet on top of her head. Earlier that day Laurent had heard some of the slaves whispering about it, but for once he agreed with her. It was still too soon to grieve.

She saw Laurent approaching first, for she was the one facing him. “I suppose you must be glad,” she said. At her words, Damianos turned around to see who she was speaking to. “This is what you wanted, after all.”

It was not, but Laurent did not feel like correcting her. “The same can be said about you. In the end, we have all gotten what we wanted.”

Damianos set his jaw. “Not all of us.”

“No,” Laurent conceded. These were the first words they had spoken in days. “I suppose Kastor would have had it another way.”

Laurent waited for Damianos to protest. A couple of weeks ago he would have, but now Laurent found himself waiting for something that never came. Perhaps it was Jokaste’s presence that stopped him from doing so, or perhaps it was his own awareness of Kastor’s true nature. Whatever the case, he did not argue with Laurent. He did not even ask for advice.

“He is not dead yet,” Jokaste said with passionless grace. Turning to Damianos, she added, “Perhaps your father—”

“That is not what we are here to discuss,” Laurent said. “The trial is nothing but a mere formality, which is why it is being stretched on like this.

“If it were nothing but a formality, Kastor’s head would already be on a spike outside the palace.”

Laurent smiled at her. “A prince’s head does not belong on a spike,” he said. “No matter who he has betrayed. The ten-day trial is both a formality _and_ a spectacle. Think of it as an educational puppet show.”

“One that ends with a severed head,” Jokaste said wryly. “What is educational about that?”

Laurent looked at Damianos. The tautness with which he held himself was nothing short of admirable: feet so firmly set on the stone they might as well have belonged to a statue, back straight and shoulders pushed back. He’d had three days and three nights to explain to his father what had happened, and whatever means he had used to dissuade Theomedes of trying Kastor for treason had failed miserably. Laurent had not expected anything different and, by the look on his face, neither had Damianos.

“Fear is a great teacher,” Laurent replied. “But let us not speak of these tedious matters anymore. We will be blessed with ten glorious days of non-stop blabber about Kastor. I would like us to talk about other things now.”

The Council room was empty except for them. A single lit torch illuminated the whole place, making shadows dance and twist on the walls. Had Laurent been allowed to select the location, it was not this place he would have chosen for their meeting. Too spacious and too small at the same time, the room did not feel inviting or particularly comfortable. If Jokaste’s goal had been to put Laurent on edge, she had not completely failed to achieve it.

With her nose in the air, Jokaste said, “I summoned you here. I get to decide what it is that we discuss.”

Laurent barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “You have not come here to beg for your husband’s life. Not even Damianos—” He broke off. _Not even Damianos is stupid enough to believe that._ “Say what you want from us and do it quickly, for I would like to go back to bed.”

“Perhaps she would if you allowed her to speak,” Damianos said.

Jokaste did not thank him for his intervention. “Our deal still stands,” she told them. “I have kept my word and now it’s your turn to do the same.”

Instead of biting his cheek to keep himself silent, Laurent said, “You have done nothing for us. The plan was for you to whisper sweet nothings into your husband’s ear and convince him to give up his wild hopes of becoming the King. It seems to me you have failed tremendously at that.”

“How observant of you. And yet you still come to me when I call.” Her eyelashes fluttered as if caught in the wind, but she had never looked less coy. “I have something you need rather desperately.”

“I can not imagine what.”

Damianos frowned. “Has Kastor given you something?”

“He has not given it to me,” Jokaste answered. “But a woman has her ways. If he did not want it to be found he should have hidden it better.”

“The letter,” Laurent said. He watched the left corner of her mouth, up and up it went into a half-smile. “Again, you are mistaken in your assumptions. I do not want it.”

“I do.”

Laurent looked at Damianos. Perhaps he should have called him stupid earlier after all. “It could be forged.”

“I do not care,” Damianos said easily. He extended a hand towards Jokaste. The gesture would have looked sweet under different circumstances—in broad daylight, with music playing, he could have been asking her for a dance. “Give it to me.”

Jokaste’s laugh was cold and without humor. “Not until I get what I have been promised.”

Laurent arched an eyebrow at her. “You want us to wait until Damianos dies of old age and your non-existent son becomes King? That might take a while.”

Damianos took a step towards her. “You already have my word. I will not—” A pause. The sharp intake of breath. “I will not have any sons or daughters.”

Laurent wanted to laugh and scoff and shout, all at the same time. “You can not promise her that,” he said and felt the echo of his own words inside his head. He’d told him the same thing about Kastor. “You’ll be the only son soon. Your father will have you married by the end of this winter.”

“There are ways to delay marriage,” Damianos argued.

“None of them efficient,” Laurent argued back. “What will your wife say when you only have her from behind? What will Theomedes say when the months turn into years and you have not fathered any sons?” He paused, aware of Jokaste’s piercing blue eyes on him. “They will think your wife barren and marry you to another. Are you willing to ruin a girl’s life in exchange for a letter?”

“I would not ruin her,” Damianos said. “I would never—”

“You brute, there is no greater shame for a Queen than to not be able to give her husband an heir. If she is thought to be the problem, which she most definitely will be, then she will be shunned and her honor will be tattered.”

“Then what do you suggest I do?” Damianos snapped. At last, all his composure and self-control were abandoning him. Whatever had been keeping him together all these days was not strong enough to hold his pieces anymore.

Laurent looked at Jokaste and then at Damianos again. He would have thought the implications of his gaze were clear enough, but neither Damianos nor Jokaste spoke. “You could always fuck her,” Laurent said irritably. Was he the only person in this room with a functioning brain? “There can’t be a marriage between you, but as long as the child resembles you… And even if he doesn’t, she could always claim Kastor is the father.”

“Kastor will be dead in ten days,” Damianos said. His face, once so open and honest, was like a blank page. No matter how hard Laurent stared at it, he could not see any messages on it. “Do you propose I fuck her right this instant?”

“Yes,” Laurent said mildly. “I do. Today and tomorrow. And the day after that, too. Every single day until Kastor’s head hits the ground.”

“No,” Damianos said. The tone of his voice made Jokaste still. “She is my brother’s wife. That was not the deal we made.”

“Worry not about the child,” Jokaste said. Despite the shameful rejection she had just suffered, she still kept her head held high. _A Kingmaker,_ Laurent thought. “I will take care of that on my own.”

“Then what is it that you want? As Damianos pointed out, you already have his word.”

The flame of the torch flickered, making the shadows around them dance. Laurent repressed a shudder. The dark he did not mind, it was the fire that worried him. A lit torch resembled a lit candle far too much for his liking. Had there been candles that last night, or was he confusing things again? Did the candles belong at Chastillon or Arles? Laurent could not remember.

“What is said today can easily be forgotten tomorrow,” Jokaste answered swiftly. “With Kastor gone, everything will change. I need guarantees, not promises.”

“No matter how much his people love him, they will not follow a eunuch.”

Damianos blanched. “She does not mean to do that,” he said, not sounding too convinced of his own words. “You have my word, of course you do. What Laurent said about my impending marriage… There are ways.”

“There are,” she agreed. “But we will do this _my_ way. It is no longer the brat’s plan we follow.”

Laurent laughed. “It’s the bitch’s. I wonder which one Damianos will hate the most.”

Ignoring him, Jokaste went on. “There is a midwife from Vask. She is well versed in these matters and has promised me secrecy. She says there are herbs her people seek and others they avoid.”

Laurent had read of such things before. There was the moon to worry about, too. It was said to have a pull on women, something that dictated the swelling of their bellies and the blood that ran down their legs each month. A Vaskian midwife was a luxury, for they did not often leave their land. Laurent wondered how much gold Jokaste had offered the woman to win her favor.

“Herbs,” Damianos echoed. Dull and flat, his voice did not sound like it usually did.

“She will give me the first kind,” Jokaste said. “And you will take the others.”

“Is it permanent?” Laurent asked. “If these mysterious herbs are to be consumed religiously every morning, it will still be Damianos’s word that matters. You will not be able to make sure he takes them forever.”

Jokaste was quiet for a moment. Out of respect, perhaps. Damianos was yet to make a sound. “Yes,” she answered. “It is permanent.”

Again the flame flickered. In the dim light of the room, the intricate braid on her head looked like a crown.

Laurent knew what Damianos was going to say before he even opened his mouth to speak. He was a fool for honor and truth, and Laurent knew the origins of the Akielon word for family. Perhaps he felt like he owed it to Kastor, after everything. It sure would make a fine apology, Laurent thought. Kastor would never sit on the golden throne, but his son would. And not because of Jokaste.

“I will do it,” Damianos said.

“For a letter?” Laurent asked in disbelief. “She is not even pregnant yet.”

“But I will be.”

Laurent scoffed. “You only have ten days. Even if you sneaked into the Kastor’s cell every night—”

“You suggested I bedded her,” Damianos said. “It is the same thing.”

“It is not the—” Laurent sighed. “You do not _need_ the letter. It is not signed, Damianos.”

“Even without the letter, we still made a deal. I have earned this.”

“You have not done anything,” Laurent snapped at her. “What have you accomplished? Your husband is in a cell.”

“It was not Kastor who hired those men,” Jokaste said evenly. “Had I had more time, I would have convinced him. He was already showing signs of remorse.”

“For trying to murder my brother?”

Jokaste shared a look with Damianos. Whatever was being silently discussed between them, Laurent was left out of it. “I have said what I want. The midwife will be here tomorrow when the sun sets.”

“I will have the letter now,” Damianos said, ignoring everything Laurent had just told him. “I want Laurent to look at it too.”

Laurent had spent the last few nights thinking of nothing else but that cursed note, and today he’d arrived at the conclusion that it could not be Uncle’s. _A head for a head_ was a fairly common Veretian proverb; it did not prove anything. And he knew his uncle’s handwriting almost better than his own. It’d be easy to prove the letter had been written by someone else.

“You can look at it all you want,” Jokaste said, “but the letter stays with me. It will be yours when you’ve fulfilled your part.”

When she drew the note from one of the folds of her dress and handed it to Damianos, he took it from her gently. In his place, Laurent would have snatched it from her rough enough to slap her hand while doing so, but this was Damianos.

Laurent held himself very still. He did not move, forcing Damianos to come closer to him so they could both look at the note. It was a tiny thing in Damianos’s hands, merely a pale square of yellowed paper, and it was folded in half. Damianos opened it slowly, his elbow brushing against Laurent’s shoulder as he did it.

It took Laurent’s eyes several minutes to adjust when the flame of the torch wobbled again. The black ink meant nothing—most people preferred black to blue or red—and there was no signature or initials at the bottom. There was no wax seal or emblem on the paper. And the handwriting was—

“ _A head for a head_ ,” Damianos read out loud. “ _I can give you what you crave the most. In the_ —”

“Stop,” Laurent said.

Damianos looked up from the paper. “What is it?”

The loops of the _L_ s and the _E_ s were wide, the capital _I_ s stood out from the rest by their darker shading, and the letters slanted to the left as if they were being pulled by an invisible force—Laurent had seen enough.

“You have not even finished reading the first paragraph,” Jokaste said when Damianos pushed the note back into her hands. “At least you could—”

“You should go,” Damianos told her. “It’d be a shame to waste this night. I am sure…” He trailed off. Awkwardly, he tried again, “I am sure Kastor will be happy to see you.”

Jokaste hid the letter away again, her dress swallowing it up once more, and left without saying anything else. Her footsteps echoed all over the room, and when she slammed the door shut the rush of air blew out the torch. Laurent welcomed the pitch-black darkness; at least this way Damianos could not see his face.

“Laurent?”

Laurent held his breath. Maybe if he was very quiet and still, maybe if he did not answer, then Damianos would leave.

But when had Laurent ever been lucky?

Damianos’s hands found Laurent’s right arm and slid down to hold his hand. “Your fingers are freezing,” he hissed into the darkness. He gave them a squeeze. “Are you there?”

“You are touching me,” Laurent said coolly. “Of course I am here.”

“That is not what I meant.” A pause. “Why did you ask me to stop reading?”

Laurent did not answer. The urge to bite his cheek was there, along with other urges, but he did not want to give in to it just yet. He thought of pulling away, but the warmth coming off Damianos’s hands felt nice. Laurent had not realized he’d been shivering until the tremors stopped.

“Laurent?”

“I am _still_ here, you imbecile.”

“Good,” Damianos said and his voice… Laurent found he could not read his voice. “Don’t let go of my hand, I’ll take you to your rooms.”

“Ask me,” Laurent said, stubbornly holding onto Damianos to keep him from moving. “Ask me what I think.”

“About Jokaste’s plan?”

“About the letter.”

But Damianos remained silent.

“I _said_ —”

“I heard you, Laurent.”

“Then why won’t you ask me? It’s a simple question, even for you.”

“I do not want to do this in the dark,” Damianos said.

Laurent heard the edge in his voice and clutched to it like a drowning man to a piece of wood. Choking with relief, he said, “Are you scared? How pathetic.”

“I am not,” Damianos said. “But I think you are.”

“You’re wrong. The dark does not scare me.”

“I did not think so.”

“I’m not scared,” Laurent repeated.

Damianos tugged at him by his hand, herding him blindly towards the door. Laurent could have struggled—at least verbally—but the thought of going back to his rooms stopped him. At least there Laurent would not have to think about any of this. He’d go to sleep and hopefully wake up in ten days when all was said and done.

The halls were deserted except for the two guards standing outside of the throne room. They nodded their heads silently at Damianos when he walked past them but did not do the same for Laurent. One of them had been an admirer of Kastor, Laurent knew. Perhaps he still was.

“You can let go of my hand now,” Laurent said as they approached the door to his rooms. He did not want anyone else to see him being dragged around by the arm by Damianos. “Unless you are still scared.”

Damianos did not let go of his hand until it he needed it to open the door. The room was dark, for Laurent did not like to leave candles burning when he was not there, but he barely had time to complain about it before Damianos busied himself with one of the oil lamps. By the time he’d managed to light it, Laurent had already kicked off his boots and crawled into bed.

“I do not understand how you can sleep in those clothes,” Damianos told him as he sat on the edge of the bed. Last time he’d set foot inside this room, Laurent had spat on his face and called him an idiot. What, Laurent wondered, was he doing there right now? Why did he keep coming back? “All those laces…”

“I do not wish to undress before you.”

Damianos made a face. “I’d never ask you to.”

“You could have continued to read the letter,” Laurent said, staring at the ceiling. He hated the shapes the oil lamp projected on it, but he did not say anything about it. “Now you’ll have to wait until after…” He cleared his throat. “If you are waiting for me to come up with another plan—”

“No. I gave Jokaste my word that I’d go through with it.”

If things were different, Laurent would have protested. He knew the real reason for Damianos’s insistence, the one behind all the farce of honor and promises. In the Council room, when Damianos had finally agreed to Jokaste’s plan, Laurent had thought he’d heard it in his voice. Now he was sure of it.

He could have said this to Damianos. _I know why you are doing this_ and _You do not owe them anything_ and _This is your life_. Running his tongue over his front teeth, Laurent savored the words in his mouth. But they would not change anything, so why waste his time saying them? At the end of the day, Damianos would do as he pleased. Or rather, as he thought he needed to do.

“The fool must think her besotted with him,” Laurent said. He had noticed how Damianos avoided saying Kastor’s name now, as though not saying it meant something. They were both fools. “Visiting him every night and riding him in that disgusting, grimy cell. He must think it’s her way of saying good-bye.”

“I know,” Damianos said quietly. “I hope he does. At least that way he… I hope he gives her the child she wants.”

Laurent thought of his own father. “Sometimes children are nothing like their parents.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because one life does not replace another,” Laurent said. He had not meant to hurt Damianos and hated to hear the anguish he himself had brought to the surface with his words. Laurent wanted all the pain he inflicted to be planned for. “Kastor won’t go on living through that child, Damianos.”

“But what if he has his eyes?” Damianos asked guilelessly. His face, when Laurent turned to look at it, was like curdled milk. “What if he laughs just like him when he’s grown?”

“We are speaking of someone that does not even exist. Jokaste is not with child and maybe she’ll never be. Ten days—”

“—are more than enough,” Damianos said. “She’ll do whatever it takes.”

“Yes,” Laurent agreed. Jokaste’s ruthlessness was not unknown to either of them. “And yet you hope for too much. She could lose the child at any moment.”

“Men need dreams.”

“Even if he has Kastor’s laugh and eyes, even if he has his whole face… That will not make him Kastor.”

Damianos lay down on the bed by Laurent’s feet. They stared at the same ceiling for a while, watching the monstrous shadows the oil lamp conjured and listening to the crashing of the waves outside. It was the loudest Laurent had ever heard them.

“Why did you ask me to stop reading the letter?”

The sore inside Laurent’s mouth throbbed painfully, demanding to be acknowledged. He had grown so used to the aches and the discomforts over the last year, the way his body seemed to play tricks on him on the least appropriate times, that he could not remember what it had felt like before.

All his memories of riding through Arles were tainted by the ghost of pain. He remembered that clearing he’d visited with Auguste, before everything, but he could not recall his brother’s face or what they had talked about. The only thing that stood out in his mind was the soreness, the way hurt had shot through him when the mare had moved too quickly.

“It is his handwriting,” Laurent said. He waited, thinking the ocean would quiet down and the night would turn into day, and when he realized the world was still the same he could not help but hate himself a little. The wind went on howling and the waves on crashing. They did not care about Laurent’s shattered heart. “It was him.”

Damianos touched his ankle, to comfort him maybe. “It could be forged,” he said without malice. He was not trying to mock Laurent by spitting his own words back at him, but rather trying to be tactful. He was the most honorable man Laurent had ever met, besides Auguste.

Auguste, who in a week’s time would receive Laurent’s letter—if he hadn’t already—and would never write back to him. Auguste, who Laurent had spent months sneering at and insulting. Auguste, who’d commissioned for Laurent the most beautiful book without ever asking anything in exchange, only because he wanted to see Laurent smile.

 _I only chose not to see it because I loved him_ , Damianos had said a couple of nights ago in this very same room. Laurent felt the insistent calling to drift away and ignored it. He saw the bloodied spear coming out his brother’s chest and heard the neighing of Auguste’s horse as it fell dead to the floor, trapping Jord beneath him. Had Laurent always known, deep down, that it was Uncle behind all of it? Had he simply loved him too much to see what was right in front of him?

The spear and the horse and also Laurent. Now that he allowed himself to think of these things, now that the graceful and neat handwriting of his uncle was seared into his memory— _A head for a head, I can give you what you crave the most_ —and that there were no other explanations, Laurent could see the things he had turned a blind eye to before.

Had his uncle’s attention on him been nothing but an attempt to turn him against Auguste? Had Uncle loved him, ever? Here Laurent hesitated. They had done the things that lovers did, although discreetly and with the knowledge that it was not entirely right. Surely there had been love there if only for the tasks Laurent’s body had endured, all the ways he had given himself up in the candlelight. It had been love.

Or had Laurent been the foolest of fools?

“It could be forged,” Laurent said when his grief allowed him to speak. The weight of Damianos’s hand around his ankle was not soothing but not exactly repulsive either. It was simply there. “It could be.”

“You know it is not,” Damianos said softly. Had Laurent spoken softly to him when he’d explained Kastor’s treason? Laurent had mocked him and called him a brute, an idiot, a fool. And yet Damianos was not saying any of those things to him now. “I am sorry, Laurent.”

Laurent felt awkward. He did not know what Damianos was apologizing for and he did not like not knowing things. “Why?”

“He is your uncle,” Damianos said. “You must be hurting.”

He was, but not for the reasons Damianos suspected. Laurent curled into himself, drawing his knees to his chest and reclaiming his ankle, finally free of Damianos’s touch. Over the course of the last week, Laurent had finally mastered the art of slipping away into that darkness where no light or sounds could reach him, but now he found he did not want to go there. The pressure was there, inviting, but Laurent continued to ignore it.

“Was it true?” he asked. “What you told me about Kastor comforting you during storms.”

Damianos seemed surprised by the question. “Yes, it was. He was good to me.”

 _So was my uncle sometimes_ , Laurent wanted to say but knew he could not. “Did he—” He cut himself off.

“Did he…?” Damianos prompted him.

“It’s going to rain,” Laurent said. He thought of Dion, the dusty green of his eyes and the easy curve of his smile. “Is that why you’re here? Because there’s a storm coming?”

“How do you know it’s going to rain?”

How did Laurent know? He could not have said. The knowledge was simply there, impossible to ignore or refute. “I can smell it,” he said even though it was a lie.

“That’s quite a talent.”

“I am not scared. Not of the dark or the rain or—or any of that. You do not need to be here.”

“I do not,” Damianos agreed. He was still sprawled across the bed.

“Then why won’t you leave?”

“Maybe it’s me that’s scared.”

Laurent wanted to laugh. Damianos, scared of the dark and a bit of thunder? It seemed preposterous. Then he remembered his face when Jokaste had spoken of the Vaskian Midwife and the fact there was no one but Laurent who knew what had happened tonight. Like Laurent, and despite being in his own home, Damianos was utterly alone.

“You can stay,” Laurent said slowly. He made sure to angle his face away as he spoke. “But if you make a single noise, I will personally maim you.”

Damianos laughed, maybe for both of them. “I do not snore if that is what worries you.”

“The pillows are mine.”

“All right.”

“You can keep the wool blanket if you’d like.”

Damianos sat up on the bed, leaning forward to put out the oil lamp. In the dark, he dragged the heavy blanket from Laurent’s bed and dropped it on the floor. He then kneeled over it, running his hands over it to get rid of the awkward lumps.

“What are you doing?” Laurent asked. “You’re not—you can not sleep on the floor.”

“Well, where else would I sleep?” Damianos replied patiently. He’d already lay down on his improvised cot. “Certainly not in your bed.”

“Why not?”

“It’d be inappropriate,” Damianos said. “The bed is not big enough to fit us both.”

Laurent stared at the ceiling some more. The ocean roared furiously, but Damianos’s breathing seemed to drown out all the other sounds. It had been months since Laurent had slept so close to anyone. Before he could overthink it, Laurent pushed one of the pillows off the bed.

Damianos yelped in surprise. “What is this?”

“A pillow,” Laurent said. “Nothing to be scared of, I believe.”

“I thought the pillows were yours.”

“They are.”

“Then why—”

“I’m giving one to you,” Laurent said irritably, wishing he had not given him anything. “I do not want to hear you complaining in the morning about your neck.”

There was nothing but silence for a moment, punctuated by their breathing.

“I liked the other one better,” Damianos said.

Laurent smacked him with it.

*

The trial began the next morning, lasting no more than four hours, for it was nothing but an introduction of what was to come. Laurent did not attend it, keeping himself well informed by the whispers the slaves carried wherever they went. The charges were multiple and treason was not the only one. A pet told Laurent that when Theomedes had read them to Kastor, neither had wept or trembled. They had faced each other as men instead of father and son. Theomedes with his golden crown, Kastor with his tattered chiton.

Damianos spent the day by Nikandros’s side, avoiding everyone else’s gaze. He attended his brother’s trial and retired shortly after to his rooms, from which he did not emerge until the sun had set and Jokaste had called for him. When he stopped by Laurent’s rooms on his way to meet her, he looked like a man who had faced death.

“All will be well,” Laurent told him. There was nothing else to say.

“Yes,” Damianos replied.

Minutes passed and Damianos did not leave. Laurent waited for him to say something, but it seemed like Damianos was waiting for him to speak too.

Hesitantly, Laurent offered, “You can sleep here again tonight if you’d like.”

“I do not know when I’ll be back,” Damianos said, not exactly refusing. “Jokaste did not say how long—” He struggled with himself for a moment. “It might be late.”

“Then it’ll be late,” Laurent said smoothly. “Do as you please.”

A nod came and went. “I have to go now.”

Laurent stood from his desk, the task at hand forgotten for the time being. “Wait,” he said, walking towards the doorway which Damianos leaned against. Laurent’s pulse quickened, blood rushing to his head. “You do not have to do this, you know.”

“Laurent.”

“You do not. I know why you’ve agreed to do it,” Laurent said. He had promised himself he would not say it, that he would keep silent and not interfere, but he could not. It was not fair. “It is idiotic. I have told you over and over again, you do not owe them anything.”

Damianos straightened. “I want that letter.”

“You’re not doing this because of the letter,” Laurent snapped. He did not like being lied to.

“Of course I am. Why else would I—”

“Kastor did not hire those men,” Laurent said. He remembered Jokaste saying the same thing, and Damianos too, before her. “But he’ll die because of it. You feel guilty and you think that you owe him this. You do not.”

“I _need_ that letter,” Damianos repeated. “It’s the only proof we have against your uncle.”

Laurent pushed the hurt away at the mention of his uncle, not knowing what to do with it. “It doesn’t matter. It won’t change anything.”

“I want him dead. He’s the reason Kastor—” Damianos, apparently, could not say it either. “He’s responsible for everything that has happened and I won’t let him get away with it.”

“Do not do this. Kastor is the only one responsible for his actions.”

“You heard Jokaste. If she’d had more time, she would have convinced him. I would have—your plan would have worked.”

Laurent should not have said anything. So what if this was not fair? The war had taken Timon’s father, people starved in some villages up north, there was hurt everywhere one chose to look. Life was not fair or kind, not even to Princes. Sometimes it was not even bearable.

“Do as you please,” Laurent said for the second time.

He watched Damianos go. After tidying the room, the desk, and the trunk, Laurent sat on his bed and waited for Damianos to return. How long could it possibly take to swallow some herbs? An hour? Two? Surely he would be back before Laurent fell asleep.

But Damianos did not come to him that night.

*

Against his better judgment, Laurent went back to the beach. The storm had passed but the black clouds remained, keeping the sun from view, and there were no birds or sly fish to be seen from the docks. He had stayed up all night, waiting for Damianos, and he was now in a foul mood. He had skipped breakfast, for once wanting to avoid the gossip and whispers, so on top of feeling weary he was also hungry. It was a terrible combination.

“You are back,” Aeneas said.

Thrashing and pulling at the net, trying to rip free, Timon was only making matters worse. It was a game Laurent had watched them play before: the one who managed to break free first won. Timon was not very good at it. When he noticed Laurent, he waved at him causing the net to twist around his hand, trapping him further.

“We thought you were sick,” Dion said, inspecting Laurent for sores or signs of a high fever. “Have you heard what is happening at the palace?”

Laurent decided to amuse himself. “No,” he lied. “What is happening?”

“The King’s son is on a _trian_ ,” Timon informed him before Dion could reply. “My mother says he did bad things.”

“ _Trial_ , Timon,” Aeneas corrected him. He sneaked a glance at Laurent’s face and looked away quickly when their eyes met. He was the oldest of the four and he must have known who Laurent was. Or where he was currently living, at least. “We do not know much about it.”

“Where have you been all these days?” Dion asked.

Laurent opened his mouth to reply, but Timon’s wailing cut him off. “I need help,” he huffed, his wild mane sticking out of the net’s holes. “Help, help.”

Aeneas rolled his eyes at Timon but scooted closer to help him without any protest. His fingers moved like spiders over the net, pulling at all the right spots before it came undone and Timon could finally stand up.

Dion tugged at Laurent’s sleeve to get his attention. “Where?” he asked again.

Laurent blinked. He had not thought of an excuse. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I want to know,” Dion replied in that tone of his. _So?_ he seemed to be asking. _So, are you going to answer?_ His eyebrows touched. “Are you unwell? Sometimes my brother gets ill.”

Aeneas laughed. “That is because he eats his fish raw.”

“He does not,” Dion argued back instantly. “Only sometimes.”

“I am not ill,” Laurent said. Because he did not want to explain his absence, he added, “But I am starving.”

“Starving?” Timon asked quietly. His eyes were brown and huge, and they seemed to take up most of his face. “Not good.”

Aeneas frowned. “Fasting?”

“No,” Laurent said carefully. “ _Starving_. As in, I am hungry.”

The three boys blinked at him.

“Then why not say hungry?” Dion asked.

Laurent sighed. He wanted to watch them race, not talk about how sloppy his Akielon had become in the last few weeks. “Dices?” he said, hoping to get a nod in response.

Timon laughed. It was high-pitched, like a girl’s squeal. “You can not eat dices.”

“No,” Dion said, laughing too. “You can not.”

“They would hurt your teeth,” Aeneas finished. He pointed at his mouth and said, “ _Teeth_.”

Laurent watched them in silence. They were mocking him and yet it did not hurt. He waited for the bubbly laughter to turn into barbed remarks, bracing himself for them as he’d done so many times in the past every time he ran into Aimeric in the halls.

Instead, more laughter came. They stopped laughing at him to laugh at Timon who had tripped over the net pooling around his feet and fallen to the sand. And then they were laughing at the way the wind blew Dion’s curls into his face, making him look like he’d grown a beard. Aeneas snorted and they laughed at him for it, too.

“Come,” Dion said when he had finally caught his breath. His cheeks were flushed and red from laughing. His hand found Laurent’s. “There is a pear tree over there.”

“A pear tree?” Laurent asked, already trailing after him. Aeneas and Timon stayed under the docks, playing with the net.

It was the first time he’d ever gone anywhere with Dion that was not the beach.

“You said you were hungry,” Dion explained. “Do you not like pears?”

The grass they sat on to eat their pears was still wet from last night’s storm. Usually, Laurent would have refused to get his clothes muddy and damp but this time he said nothing. Dion ate his fruit quickly, letting the juice run down his forearms, and stared at Laurent when he was finished.

“I like grapes more,” Laurent said without thinking. He flushed; he had not meant to say that. “I mean—”

“Grapes?” Dion asked, tilting his head. He was like a bird in the way he moved sometimes. “What kind?”

“Red.”

“I like figs,” Dion declared. “Are there figs in Vere?”

Laurent choked on his pear. They had never spoken like this before, especially not about where Laurent came from. Coughing into his fist, he said, “Yes.”

“Do you like them?”

“Not really.”

Dion only hummed in response.

“Is your family well?” Laurent asked politely. He liked to hear Dion’s wild stories about his mother and siblings. Even his father sounded like an interesting man.

Dion plucked a small stone from the grass and inspected it for a moment. “Yes, they are well. And yours?”

“I don’t have—” But it was a lie. Laurent shook his head, silently scolding himself. “I only have a brother.”

Dion dropped the stone. “Oh,” he said excitedly. “How old is he? Is he like _my_ brother?”

“He is twenty-five.”

“What is his name?”

Laurent closed his eyes. He thought of Auguste’s face and his hands over his as he taught him how to properly hold the reins of his mare. “Guess,” he told Dion without opening his eyes.

“Eos?”

“No.”

“Basil?”

Laurent laughed. “No.”

“Cyril?”

“It starts with an A.”

Dion tsked. “Achaeus.” When he caught a look at Laurent’s face, he quickly said, “Arius? No, Antiochus.”

“It’s Auguste,” Laurent said.

“Auguste,” Dion repeated, butchering his brother’s name with his thick Akielon accent. Laurent did not correct him. “What is he like?”

The question caught him off guard, silencing him instantly. So far, no one had ever asked Laurent anything about his life in Vere. Aeneas did not seem interested and Timon only cared about playing. He had never had to explain anything to Damianos, for he’d already met Auguste.

“He is warm,” Laurent said stupidly. He coughed around the tightness of his throat but it only made matters worse. His whole face felt too hot, too raw. “He is the best fighter in Vere.”

“Even better than the King?” Dion asked innocently. To him, Kings were god-like, ethereal. He had never worn a crown or had people kneel before him. He had never commanded anyone.

 _He is the King_ , Laurent thought of saying, but it seemed like such a silly thing to say about Auguste. There were so many other things Laurent wanted to say about him, bigger and better. How he was a terrible dancer and could not play the lyre even if his life depended on it. How he snored sometimes if he slept on his right side instead of on his back. How he had fed Laurent fruit under the oak tree in the gardens when their mother was too sick and their father too busy.

But there were no words that would do him justice.

“Yes,” Laurent said after a beat. “He is.”

“Where is he now?” Dion asked, tilting his head again to the side.

“In Vere.”

“Oh,” Dion said. “My brother is at my house.”

“Good for you,” Laurent said wryly.

Dion picked up the stone again and made it skip twice down the grass hill. “I would miss him if he went away to Vere,” he said. Scrunching up his nose, he added, “His Veretian is bad. He would not like it very much there.”

“Would _you_?”

Dion smiled at him. Easily. Contagiously. “I do not know,” he said. “What is your uncle’s name?”

The pear turned sour in Laurent’s mouth.

“The one who gave you the earring, I mean,” Dion clarified. He had not yet learned to read Laurent’s expression and mistook his silence for confusion.

Laurent stood. “Race you back to the docks.”

“But you do not like running,” Dion said, already rising.

“Then show me how fast you can run instead.”

Dion flashed him a smile. There was little else he liked more than running. Out of the four boys, he was the fastest. He reminded Laurent of Lazar, in a way.

The boy hung back for another second and then was off, his laughter trailing behind him as though it could not quite catch up.

*

Kastor’s cell reeked of sweat and Jokaste’s perfume.

Laurent had been hiding behind a column, waiting for her to come out of the dungeons and leave for the night. Even though he tried not to, he still heard them. She was not exactly quiet and Kastor did not seem to mind her overdramatic moans. Laurent had expected them to sound like animals, panting and howling and simply out of breath, but they did not sound like that at all. There were whispers and the familiar sound of skin hitting skin. As it turned out, Akielons and Veretians all fucked the same.

Finally, Jokaste climbed up the stairs and into Laurent’s view, a few strands of hair loose from her braid and her dress disheveled. Laurent waited a few minutes after she had gone, just to be sure she would not come back, and then started his way down to the dungeons.

Kastor was still naked when Laurent approached his cell, but he was quick to cover himself with the linen sheet the moment he heard footsteps. His back was broader than his brother’s and his beard had grown thick and curled at the edges. Maybe this was how Damianos would look like at twenty-eight.

“I have not come here to mock you,” Laurent said, anticipating Kastor’s crude remarks. A part of Laurent wanted to laugh at his face and sneer and joke, for this man had tried to murder Auguste, he had hurt Jord… But this man was also going to be punished. It seemed childish to gloat now. “There is something I need to ask you.”

“The fact that you think I’ll answer is mocking enough,” Kastor said. His voice was hoarse as if it had been him moaning for hours instead of Jokaste. “I have nothing to say to you.”

Laurent licked his lips. The cold had chapped them already, and winter had only just begun. Soon, if he was not careful, they would start bleeding. “You said a child gave you the letter.”

“I will not talk to you.”

“What was the child’s name?”

Kastor laughed. “Insistent, aren’t you? I can see why your brother had a hard time refusing your advances.”

Laurent leaned back against the wall, only to feel something cold against his burning skin. “I could give you something in exchange for the name.”

“Are you offering me my freedom?”

“Of course not.”

“Then I am not interested,” Kastor replied. “Run along now, brat. This is no place for you.”

“Was it a boy?” Laurent asked. “What color were his eyes?”

“I _said_ —”

“I could bring Damianos to see you,” Laurent blurted out. “I know he has not been here since the time he came with me. I could get him to—”

Kastor walked to the bars. “Why would I want him here?”

“Because he’s your brother.”

“He is the reason I’m here in the first place.”

“That was all your doing,” Laurent said. “If he knows you want him to come, he will.”

“I do not want him here,” Kastor bit out. It was hard to know whether or not he meant it. “Leave.”

“All I need is a name.”

Kastor sagged against the bars. Despite having just fucked his wife, he did not look pleased or happy at all. There was no glow to him—not that there ever had been—and when he spoke it was with great effort. Long gone were his arrogant confidence and the cockiness of his smile, and looking at him now it was hard to recall if those things had been real at all.

“I have no name for you,” he told Laurent.

“Was it a boy or a girl?”

Kastor pressed his forehead against the cool iron. “Haven’t you taken enough from me? You have stripped me of my title and my family. Even my life. It is definitely you and not your brother who ought to be put down.”

Laurent ignored him. It was easy, after all, with the thick bars separating them. He could spend the whole night berating Kastor and the man could do nothing about it. But Laurent could barely stand the cold and the stench there and it would only grow worse with each passing hour.

“Were his eyes green?” Laurent asked.

“He was nothing but a stable boy. I do not recall his name, let alone the color of his fucking—”

“A stable boy.”

“Yes,” Kastor said irritably. “Will you go away now?”

“Did he not seem too pretty to be a stable boy?”

Kastor gave him a cold, dead stare. “I do not remember.”

Laurent watched his face intently, trying to work out if he was lying. When Kastor made an impatient noise and signaled Laurent to move on, Laurent obeyed. He supposed it did not matter if Kastor was telling the truth or not.

There was only one boy at the palace who looked like he worked in the stables.

“Are you certain you do not want me to bring Damianos?”

“If he is a man,” Kastor said lowly, “he will come on his own.”

Laurent held his gaze, said, “This might be your last chance to talk to him. Perhaps you should—”

Kastor reached out through the bars, trying to get to Laurent. It was only a second, maybe even less than that, but Laurent’s pulse quickened anyways. He stumbled backward and collided with the wall, hitting the back of his head.

“Go,” Kastor said. “Or I’ll make sure to catch you next time.”

Heart trying to leap out of his throat, Laurent slid away, back still pressed against the cold and grimy wall. He paused at the door for one last glance at Kastor, wondering if this was the last time they would see each other.

It was not.

*

The rest of the trial was a blur to Laurent. He spent every day at the beach or under the pear tree with Dion, avoiding Damianos and everyone from the Akielon royal family. If it was cowardly of him to do so, Laurent did not care. He did not care about anything anymore.

The last night—the one before the verdict would be served—Damianos came to see him. They had not spoken in almost nine days and the sight of him on his doorway made Laurent uncomfortable. He’d almost forgotten how imposing Damianos was. Even without a circlet or an armor, there was a pull to him. Something that made one want to look and maybe even bow.

And to think he would leave nothing behind when he died.

Laurent resolved not to ask any questions. He nodded silently at Damianos to come in and close the door behind him. Once that was done, Damianos walked up to the bed and extended his hand, waiting for Laurent to give him the woolen blanket and a pillow.

“You can have the bed tonight,” Laurent sniffed. He hoped Damianos would not make him repeat himself, for this was humiliating enough. He told himself he was not doing it out of kindness, but to pay him back for those times Damianos had brought him back from the other side. “I will take the floor.”

“No,” Damianos said and Laurent was surprised to find his voice rough and sharp. “Like last time.”

“But—”

“Please.”

Laurent gaped at him. He had a million questions to ask. _What was it like_ and _How did they taste_ and _Do you regret it now._ Any other night he would have asked them, but not tonight. This was the last time Damianos would go to sleep having a brother. Laurent forced himself to respect that.

In complete silence, he handed the blanket and the pillow to Damianos who laid them on the floor and nearly collapsed on top of them. Laurent blew out the only candle he had lit and let his head roll back on the only pillow.

The biggest of storms had passed nearly ten nights ago. Now, the sky was clear and the moon missing, but the stars shone in its place. Laurent imagined them to be the eyes of a giant creature that watched his every move. That was something Auguste had told him when he was younger before Laurent learned about constellations and the importance of stars for sailing.

“Do you think it will hurt?” Damianos asked him and his voice was like a whisper. It was the sort of thing a child would ask.

“No,” Laurent lied with confidence. “It will be quick and easy. Like falling asleep after a long day.”

“Jokaste tried to slip him some herbs tonight. For his nerves.”

“And?”

“He refused them.”

Laurent was not surprised in the slightest. “He knows it will be quick.”

“He does not,” Damianos said. “I would have taken them if I was in his place. I don’t—he is braver than me.”

Instead of starting an argument over it, Laurent said, “Tell me again what he was like before.”

Damianos’s breaths came and went, mirroring the sea. Laurent rolled over to the very edge of the bed, cheek pressed flatly against the mattress to get a better view of Damianos sprawled on the floor. His eyes were closed, dark eyelashes making his face look almost boyish.

“He taught me how to throw a spear,” Damianos said, not opening his eyes. “He carried me over his shoulders sometimes. When I was eight, he would steal olives from the kitchens and bring them to me.”

“Do you like olives that much?”

A small, sad smile spread across Damianos’s face. “No. We only played with them. He would hold two of them up to his face, pretending they were his eyes. He’d make the funniest voices.”

This was the last night. Without thinking about it, Laurent let his arm dangle from the bed, fingertips brushing against Damianos’s hand. He did not open his eyes or flinch away in surprise, only shifted so he could hold Laurent’s hand back.

“Go on,” Laurent said. “Tell me more.”

Damianos did.

*

It was a warm, sunny day. The sky was the bluest Laurent had ever seen it, not a cloud could be spotted for miles. Even the breeze was pleasant, soft, and fresh. It felt like winter, although it had just begun, was coming to an end.

Kastor kneeled. They had—as one last courtesy—allowed him to change clothes. He was wearing the whitest chiton Laurent had ever seen, paired with a crimson cloak. It was Damianos’s.

His mother was standing next to the King, her face an expressionless mask. Jokaste had, at last, embraced the widows’ traditions and let her hair fall, unbraided, over her shoulders. It seemed to glow under the sun, pale like wheat and golden as bronze at the same time.

Kastor did not look at either of them. His brown eyes were fixed on Damianos. If there was anger in them, Laurent could not spot it. When his charges were read to him again, he said nothing. When his father waved his hand for the executioner to come forward, he only blinked once.

“Your last words,” the man holding the sword said.

Kastor smiled. It looked kind. “Damen,” he said.

The man waited a minute for him to continue and when it became clear Kastor had nothing more to add, he brought the sword down swiftly and efficiently, with as much grace as a butcher could take pride in. Blood splattered the soil and the front of the man’s clothes as Kastor’s head hit the ground and rolled towards the King’s feet.

Above them, the sun went on shining, bright and warm and blinding. It was a beautiful day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! So, another long chapter (9k words) and another death. We only have one chapter left of this section of the story and it is one of my favorites. It is really, really long, so I'm thinking of either splitting it into two parts or eventually editing some stuff out. We'll see how it goes!  
> Do not fret, all will be eventually explained. We all have questions and the next chapter is Damen's POV so like... get ready? I know you all hated Kastor but I'm hoping at least ONE of you felt a bit sorry for him while reading this chapter. I'm SO excited for what comes next!  
> Thank you for your lovely comments and your infinite patience! The next chapter is, as I've said already, really long so it's going to take me a bit longer than usual to update. I'm positive that Ch 12 will be up by next Friday! (Again, I am sorry for the delay) Thank you! <3


	13. Twelve: Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, [Najona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Najona/pseuds/Najona)! This chapter is for you.

**Twelve**

**Part I**

The porridge was bland and lukewarm, but Damianos forced himself to eat all of it. Mechanically and with practiced ease, he grabbed a red apple from the wooden bowl and took a bite without peeling it first. Despite the fact that apples were in season, this one was grainy like sand and just as tasteless as the porridge had been. Damianos ate it all in five bites and then moved on to the walnuts.

“You should eat something other than that,” he told Laurent, pointing at the silver plate filled with honeyed pear slices. That was the only fruit Laurent had shown any interest in for the past few weeks. “The porridge has not gone cold yet.”

Laurent didn’t look up from the book he was reading. “No,” he said simply.

Damianos sighed. “I thought we’d talked about this. Breakfast is not reading time, Laurent. You can’t just—”

“What’s the difference between _elder_ and _ancient_?”

“You know the difference,” Damianos said. He’d heard Laurent use both of those words correctly in the past. “At least drink some milk. Do you want to be a dwarf forever?”

Laurent pressed his index finger to the page, so as to resume his reading once he was done talking. When he looked up, his whole face was twisted into an annoyed frown. “Goat milk tastes disgusting. And I’m not a dwarf. You’re just a giant animal.”

“Nikandros and I are the same height,” Damianos replied. Something stirred in him, nameless and uncalled for. Had he meant to say Nikandros? “Have a piece of bread.”

“I can’t. It’s already late.”

“Your friend has not arrived yet,” Damianos argued. Instead of waiting for Laurent to comply, he picked a slice of bread and spread some honey over it. If Laurent had a weakness it was his sweet tooth. “Go on,” he said, pushing the bread towards him. “Eat.”

Laurent rolled his eyes at the food he was being offered. “I don’t like barley bread,” he said, nibbling at it. He looked like one of those feral rodents Damianos had seen in the forests up north. “Besides, it’s common knowledge that eating when one is not hungry can be highly detrimental to one’s health.”

“Now that you mention it,” Damianos said, “I have read that dwarves don’t live as long as other people.”

Laurent kicked him under the table, right on the shin. Pain exploded below his knee and spread throughout his whole leg, but Damianos did not yelp. He was surprised Laurent had not resorted to physical violence sooner during their conversation. Just last week, he’d stepped on Damianos’s foot for suggesting he had lunch with everyone else instead of by himself in his rooms.

“I am _not_ a dwarf.”

“How come Auguste is so tall while you are so tiny?” Damianos asked him, crossing his legs under the table so Laurent could not reach him as easily. However, the blow never came.

Laurent had put down the bread and was pushing a slice of pear around in his plate. “Have you heard from him?” he asked, trying to sound casual.

Damianos had never been too good at reading people. He’d always thought it was a pointless skill to have. What was reading someone’s face compared to reading someone’s movements on the battlefield? But now Damianos knew better. He’d found himself staring at Laurent’s face and trying to pick apart his expression, trying to understand where he was coming from when he spoke like this, so casually and yet so restrainedly.

Laurent might not know how to wield a sword or throw a spear, but he knew how to spar with words. When he got like this—quiet and strangely nonchalant—Damianos knew there was something he was not saying.

“No,” Damianos said. Laurent’s hand moved to grab his cup. “I have been writing to him once a week, but so far no letter has come through.”

It was not a lie. Auguste’s first letter had been his only one. At first, Damianos had thought him busy or away from the palace, but as the weeks kept on passing he’d become more and more worried. Surely news of any illness or accident regarding the King of Vere would have reached Ios by now, and so that only left very few explanations as to why Auguste was not replying to any of Damianos’s letters.

Laurent pushed the plates away and stood up. “My lesson is about to start,” he announced.

“So is my training,” Damianos said and drank the rest of the water in his cup. “Let me walk you there.”

“No.”

“I promise I won’t call you out on your stature again.”

Laurent’s face was pale except for two red blotches on his cheeks. “That is not why I do not want you to come with me,” he said in a haste. “Dion is most likely there already.”

The corners of Damianos’s mouth twitched slightly. “And?”

He trailed after Laurent, only half-listening to his rant about Damianos’s status as the Prince of Akielos. He’d heard the same monologue about five times now, and it always ended the same way. Laurent, as he’d said a billion times, did not enjoy witnessing the interactions between Dion and Damianos. If Damianos did not know any better, he would have thought Laurent was jealous.

Not that he had any reason to be, Damianos thought. Dion was younger than Laurent by almost two years and he was not as cunning or mature. If most of the time talking to Laurent felt like trying to reason with an angry, stubborn child, then holding a conversation with Dion was even harder. The boy was silent as a mouse and respectful to the point of ridiculousness. He hardly dared to breathe when Damianos was in the room.

Damianos could not, for the life of him, understand how he tolerated Laurent. They were different in almost every way, and yet Aesop had told Damianos that they never fought during lessons. If anything, the man had had to reprimand Laurent on more than one occasion for getting distracted by explaining things to Dion instead of focusing on his own work.

“—ruin everything. Why must you put me through this every single morning?” Laurent was saying as they approached the lesson room. This was how he always liked to end his rant: inducing guilt and being dramatic. “And you walk so slowly. It must be all the undigested food inside of you. You ate like a savage today. Well, you eat like a savage every morning, but still. And—”

“Laurent,” Aesop said from the door down the hall. “Perhaps you’d like us to postpone today’s lesson. You seem awfully busy talking to Damianos.”

Aesop was slightly older than Theomedes. He wore simple clothing—a long cream-colored tunic and black leather sandals even in the cold—and had a full beard that matched the scarce black hair still clinging to his head. Looking at him, one could mistake him for a commoner, but it was rumored he was highborn. Damianos had never dared ask, for he knew the man’s dislike for titles and nobility. He was the only tutor Damianos had ever had who did not call him anything but his given name.

Laurent blushed. “I am sorry,” he said. There was no acidic addition or insults. “Is Dion here already?”

“Yes. He arrived on time,” Aesop said, moving away from the door to let Laurent slip inside. “Damianos, I’d like to have a word with you.”

Damianos could not help but force himself to stand up straighter. Aesop had never cared much about his posture—or at least not as much as other tutors had—but Damianos was no longer a child. Princes did not slouch, especially not in front of people they respected.

Once Laurent was inside, Aesop closed the door behind him and walked up to where Damianos stood. It was always strange to face him, for the last time Damianos had been his student Aesop had still been taller and broader than he was. Now things had changed and Damianos towered over the man without any effort on his part, almost two heads taller.

“Is there a problem?” Damianos asked politely. He had told Laurent to be respectful, but he knew by now that sometimes Laurent was not _pretending_ to ignore him, he actually was. “I apologize for Laurent being late today. It was my fault for holding him back during breakfast.”

Aesop regarded him for a moment. Around them, the hall had grown eerily quiet. “We have not had a proper chance to speak since I came here. I was hoping you’d dine with me tonight.”

“Of course,” Damianos said. “It’d be my pleasure. Come to my rooms at whatever hour you see fit.”

Aesop lifted a wispy eyebrow at him. “Why should I meet you in your rooms? I am an old man, Damianos. Perhaps you should come to me instead.”

Damianos felt the urge to smile and stomped on it, hard. “I will if that is what you want me to do.”

“Very well then,” Aesop said. “You shall bring the wine.”

Damianos nodded and watched him go into the room Laurent had disappeared into some minutes ago. The door was open for less than a minute, and yet it was long enough for Damianos to hear Dion’s laughter before the door closed and muffled all sounds.

His feet shuffled forward and soon Damianos was walking outside, letting his legs carry him to the place behind the garden where Nikandros was waiting for him. The sight of him made Damianos want to laugh and cry at the same time. There was so much he was not allowed to tell him, so many things he wished Nikandros knew about, that it made it hard for Damianos to breathe sometimes.

And there was also this feeling every time they spoke, as though there was some invisible barrier between them preventing them from truly understanding each other. That had never been the case when they were growing up. How many times had they wrestled and told jokes and played games? How many times had Damianos wondered what it’d be like to have a brother like him?

A brother. Damianos could not bear to think about it.

“You are late,” Nikandros said pleasantly enough. He had never liked to be kept waiting but would never complain out loud about it, especially not to Damianos. “Did the Prince give you trouble this morning?”

“Of course he did,” Damianos replied. “It’s what he does every morning. I would have thought something was wrong with him if today had been any different.”

Nikandros watched him stretch for a moment. He mirrored Damianos’s movements with ease, bending one of his legs at the knee and then the other. “You are too kind to him. He is fourteen already.”

“Not yet. He turns fourteen in a few months.”

“When we were fourteen…” Nikandros began and broke off. Whatever he had been about to say was lost in the moment. “He is not the only one attending lessons.”

Damianos sank to the ground and felt the cold stone under the palms of his hands as he began his morning exercises. He was counting on Nikandros to keep track of them. “He has a friend. Already he is less disagreeable because of the boy.”

“Is he now?” Nikandros asked. “The boy is not highborn.”

“He is not.”

“Does his family know about this?”

“Yes.”

“That’s enough,” Nikandros told him and Damianos stilled halfway through the tenth push up. “Leaps come next.”

Damianos sat on his haunches, frowning. “I only did ten.”

“You did fifty yesterday and sixty-six the day before,” Nikandros said. “Let your arms rest one day this week or the cramping will prevent you from using them at all tomorrow.”

“I thought you could not stand him,” Damianos said, rising to his feet and moving on to the next set of jumps. “And yet—you talk—to him—about me.”

_You are punishing yourself_ , Laurent had told him the other day when Damianos could barely move from the searing pain in his muscles and joints. He had been training for hours under the rain and then went to a meeting with his father even though he could barely stomach to hear his voice these days. By the time the day had drawn to a close, Damianos’s body had been ready to shut down.

Of course Damianos had not listened to him. And, of course, Laurent had gone to Nikandros behind his back.

“He barely let me speak a word,” Nikandros said, “but he did seem convinced that you need to be mindful of what your body needs.”

Damianos knew his body inside out. He lay awake at night listening to it, the slow breaths and the cracking of his knuckles, and spent his days ignoring its hunger. He ate without joy and only enough to sustain his new training regime, nothing else. He took no lovers, not even pets, and instead focused all his energy into this sole task: to become the kind of man others could not resist following.

So what if he had grown to like the pain of the push-ups and the jumps? It was no crime to enjoy the hurt and to revel in it. There was comfort in his routine, in knowing what was waiting for him each day when he awoke. He had never liked surprises anyways, and the meticulous planning of his hours made it hard, if not impossible, for him to think of other things. Of other people.

In everything else, Damianos had let Laurent have his way. But not this.

“Run with me,” he told Nikandros, only a little out of breath after his last jump. “It has been a while since I’ve beat you.”

Nikandros laughed. Damianos watched him—eyes crinkling up at their edges, mouth curling upwards, hands tying his hair back to keep it from getting into his eyes—and tried to remember if Kastor had ever laughed like that with him. The thought caught him by surprise. He had not intended to think about his brother in front of others, especially not in front of Nikandros, and yet the thought would not go away, a question mark in Damianos’s head that seemed to grow bigger with each passing second.

“Whenever you are ready,” Nikandros said.

Damianos set his jaw and turned his face away. Perhaps there was no barrier between them, no veil or distance. Perhaps it was Damianos who was keeping Nikandros at arm’s length. _You are punishing yourself_.

“Now,” Damianos shouted, relishing in the way his feet touched the ground and hurt spread through his tired muscles as he ran.

Punishment had never felt so good before.

*

Aesop’s chambers were on the other side of the palace. Normally, Damianos would not mind walking the distance, but tonight his whole body felt heavy and it was a chore to move. He had nicked one of the best bottles of wine from the kitchen, knowing his father intended to dine with it, and felt no guilt about it. There was too much remorse inside him already.

The old man opened the door before Damianos could even knock. Knowing him, he would have most likely been listening with his ear pressed against the wood, trying to surprise him with this trick. In some ways, nothing had truly changed. Aesop had always liked riddles and games, which is why he had been Damianos’s favorite teacher.

“Ah,” he said, examining the bottle of wine Damianos handed him. “Red wine from Thrace. Lovely. Take a seat, child, while I—” He stopped talking and laughed. “I suppose I can not call you that any longer.”

Damianos’s felt his throat tighten. “No,” he agreed slowly. “I suppose not.”

The room was not luxurious or full of furniture, but rather simple and tidy. There was a single rug, soft-looking and made of wool, along with one singular chest for clothes. The chairs groaned when they sat on them. A servant’s room.

“How are the lessons progressing?” Damianos asked, watching Aesop pour the wine. “I know Laurent is very different from me when I was that age.”

Aesop waved a hand dismissively. “The child is bright. His memory is unlike anything I have ever seen before. And his friend… Well, at least he is trying.”

“Do they bicker?”

“Not that I’ve seen. Although Laurent is rather protective of him. He does not seem to like it when I correct Dion.”

Damianos knew about that. He’d heard Laurent complain about it before. According to him, Dion’s progress was to be admired, not criticized. “And that bothers the other boy.”

Aesop seemed surprised by this. “Not at all. He laughs when Laurent defies me. He…”

“Yes?”

“He reminds me of you,” Aesop answered. He took a sip of his wine and smiled into his cup. Damianos had not even tasted his. “You were just like that when you were younger.”

There was nothing Damianos could see of himself in Dion. The boy was shy and submissive, the sort of son any commoner would kill to have, and exactly the sort of boy Damianos had never been.

Not daring to outright contradict him, Damianos said, “I am sorry to say I do not see the similarity between us two.”

Aesop was quiet for a long time. He drained his cup and then poured himself another but did not go on drinking. There was food on the small, crooked table between them, but Damianos had never felt less like eating anything. Laurent’s weird eating habits seemed to be rubbing off on him. The silence was not awkward or stilted, and when Aesop spoke Damianos had almost forgotten what they had been talking about.

“He looks at Laurent the way you used to look at Kastor,” he said into the stillness. Having put down his cup, his hands were clasped on his lap where Damianos could see their wrinkles and spots and all the imperfections that came with old age. “Of course, Kastor was not nearly as polite to me as Laurent is. You seemed to like that about him. I remember—”

“Stop,” Damianos said.

“You have been avoiding me,” Aesop said without any accusation in his voice. He was simply stating the obvious. “Did you think I would not notice why?”

Damianos continued to stare at the man’s hands. A strange thought crossed his mind, as blinding as a shooting star, and then was gone. Kastor’s hands would never look like that. He would never know old age, with its aches and discomforts. He would never defy anyone again.

“I do not wish to speak of this with you.”

“One rarely wishes for such things, and yet sometimes they are necessary.”

“Enjoy your wine,” Damianos said and put his hands on the table to push himself away. Aesop’s hand over one of his stopped him. “I can not—”

“Child,” he said. “It does not do to lie to oneself about this sort of thing. It is not that you can not, but rather that you refuse to.”

Damianos sat down again. “I am not a child,” he said, hearing Laurent’s voice inside his head. How many times had he told Damianos those same five words? And worse, was that how Damianos sounded like now? “And you had not seen him in years. You do not know… You have no way of knowing who he had become.”

“I don’t pretend to,” Aesop said. “But I used to know him. Do you remember when you were both children, how much he enjoyed making you smile?”

Damianos turned his head, hiding his face from view. “He was not the child you knew.”

“I imagine he was not the child either of us knew. That does not mean that child did not exist.”

“What good is it to speak of such things? They will not change anything.”

Aesop took a long sip of wine. “Because if you do not speak of them, who will? Your father certainly won’t and neither will your brother’s widow. She does not strike me as a woman who talks freely of her feelings.”

_Because she does not have any_ , Damianos thought bitterly. He would have rather they spoke of Jokaste, for anger was something Damianos could handle. It was something he could work with, unlike the nameless thing that rose up like bile inside him. With anger, Damianos would have known what to do.

“Did you get to speak to him before he passed?”

Damianos slumped in his chair, body refusing to hold itself upright and rigid anymore. “Yes,” he said, feeling like a child all over again.

“What was it like? Not easy, I imagine. He was always proud, sometimes to the point of foolishness.”

Damianos did not want to lie. He wanted—what? He did not know, but lying was not it. All these days he had been busying himself with other things, trying to prove to everyone around him that he was committed to being a better ruler than his father, trying not to think about Kastor’s last word, trying to forget about the blood and the sound his brother’s head had made when it hit the ground. Would he ever succeed, or would the rest of his life be nothing but an endless cycle of failures?

“I asked him to forgive me,” Damianos said.

Aesop gave him a minute to answer. And then another. And another. “Did he?”

Damianos took the first sip of his wine. Flavor exploded in his mouth, sweet and spicy at the same time, finer than any mead he’d ever had before. It made the insides of his throat feel like they were made out of silk.

“Tell me a story first,” Damianos said, lowering his cup. “Tell me a tale or a fable or one of those poems you liked to recite to me. After, I’ll tell you about Kastor.”

“I will not forget,” Aesop warned him. “I am not that old yet.”

Damianos did not reply, busying himself with his wine. Aesop did not ask him what story he wanted to hear, and Damianos knew which one he’d pick before the man had even begun. It was _The rise and fall of Absyrtus_ , the story Kastor had always hated the most. Damianos had always found it boring. And now...

The ending was different from the one Damianos remembered, but he did not say anything about it. Perhaps the old man’s memory was not as good as he thought it was.

*

Laurent was awake when Damianos slipped into his room after talking to Aesop for what seemed like an eternity. He was in bed, carefully reading that book of his that had taken him weeks to mend. Some of the pages had simply not survived Laurent’s vicious attack, but most of them were not in a too terrible state. A little wrinkled if anything, but the words were still readable and that was all Laurent seemed to care about. Damianos had never seen anyone work so hard to repair something, let alone a book, and the first time he had seen Laurent reading it after finally stitching the spine back together he had been filled with a second-hand pride he did not know existed.

Closing his book, Laurent said, “It is late. I thought you would not come tonight.”

But Laurent had clearly been hoping Damianos would come, for he had already dragged the bedding off the bed and dumped it on a neat pile on the floor. Even the pillow looked recently fluffed. Damianos decided not to call him out on it and simply made his way across the room to him.

“You do not need to stop reading,” Damianos said. “I do not mind the light.”

Laurent scoffed. “As if I would stop doing whatever I’m doing for you. I am going to sleep too.”

Damianos watched him place the book under his pillow and tuck himself in, sheets up to his chin. His hair was getting long. Damianos could not help but wonder if Laurent would allow anyone to cut it for him. Probably not.

“Are you tired?” Damianos asked him when Laurent turned his head to blow out the candle. He had noticed that Laurent avoided flames as much as possible, sometimes preferring the dark to a burning torch or lit candles.

Laurent stilled. Damianos could see his breathing in the way the flame wobbled with each exhale. “Why do you ask?”

“I would like to speak with you.”

“We are already speaking,” Laurent said. Swiftly, he blew the candle out. His voice, when he spoke again, was more relaxed than before. “What do you want?”

It took Damianos a moment to get used to the darkness. He blinked a couple of times, then said, “Aesop told me your Akielon is improving fast. He seemed surprised by your memorizing skills.”

“I have been told before I am smart. There is no need for flattery, Damianos. If you need a favor—”

“No, I just… I was curious about something.”

“Yes?”

Damianos cleared his throat. It felt sore after talking so much. “What are your dreams like? The ones you have when you’re awake, I mean.”

Laurent’s breath hitched. “What does that have to do with my unprecedented intelligence?” he asked back, deflecting.

“You are so rational all of the time,” Damianos said carefully. “It seems rather strange that you can not differentiate at once what is real from what is not.”

The floor was not as uncomfortable as it usually was, which meant Laurent had done something to the bedding. Had he had the slaves sew two blankets together? Whatever it was, Damianos appreciated it greatly. As much as he enjoyed these late-night conversations, his back was starting to bother him during meetings and training, and dragging another mattress into Laurent’s room was out of the question. Damianos felt weird enough as it was sleeping here, and he did not need everyone in the palace to know about it.

“They aren’t dreams,” Laurent said and his voice cut through the silence like a knife. Damianos had not realized before how suffocating the quiet was. “They are more like memories.”

“Oh,” Damianos said stupidly. “Then why are you not able to pull yourself out of them? Surely if you start remembering something, you know it has already happened.”

“I did not want to, before.”

Damianos frowned even though he was aware Laurent could not see his face. “What do you mean?”

“I did not want to pull myself out of them,” Laurent explained briskly. He hated repeating himself, this Damianos knew, but there was also something else in his voice. Something Damianos could not read without looking at his face.

“They are pleasant memories then.”

Laurent did not answer.

“When did it start?” Damianos asked. He had no hope that Laurent would answer and was unsurprised to hear the rustling of the sheets that signaled Laurent had rolled away to sleep.

Laurent’s voice startled him. “After the war,” he said. And then, “Why are you asking me this?”

_Why_ was Damianos asking him this? Maybe it was only because he did not want to speak of other things yet and this seemed like the perfect distraction. It had seemed innocuous enough, and still did, but Laurent had a way of twisting Damianos’s words and turning them into something he had never intended them to be. It was out of pure curiosity that Damianos had asked him about the dreams, but it would be a lie to say there was no concern inside him too.

He had seen Laurent during those episodes at least twice, and it was not a pretty sight. What troubled Damianos was that when Laurent was in one of those states, he could not defend himself at all. His body would go limp and corpse-like, and he would not show any signs of being able to hear or see. Damianos would not be around forever, but Laurent would always have to be watched. If he had one of those fits in the wrong company…

“I am only curious,” Damianos said. If Laurent heard the lie in his voice, he did not point it out. “Do you have any idea why they started in the first place?”

“No.”

“Did that Patran physician help you at all with them? Besides giving your brother those salts, did he offer you any advice on how to make them go away?”

The sound of rustling sheets filled the room once more as Laurent rolled over to face Damianos in the dark. “Stop.”

“But I have only—”

“Why the sudden interest?”

Damianos was taken aback by the tone of Laurent’s voice. It had been a while since Damianos had heard him so poisonous. “It just worries me,” he said. “You can not go on forever like this.”

“Why not?” Laurent asked just as sharply. “I have gotten this far, have I not? And I have those miraculous salts in case I need any help.”

Damianos knew better than to point out the obvious flaws in Laurent’s plan. Instead, he found himself saying, “I had nightmares after the war ended.”

“I just told you they are not dreams.”

“I know. I only meant—what are they about?”

Laurent stopped breathing completely. It made Damianos feel suddenly insecure, as though he was being too loud just by drawing in a breath. Tonight the sea was calm and the waves could not be heard, which made Laurent’s room more silent than usual.

“Does it matter?” Laurent asked, clearly hoping Damianos would say it did not.

Damianos hesitated. He did not want to push Laurent too hard—he had seen how Laurent reacted when people did not give him space—but this was the most they had talked about how the war had impacted their lives.

Had Damianos been a stronger man, he would have said what he wanted to say right there and then. _If the war had not happened, I’d still have a brother. If the war had not happened, we’d never have met as allies._ But Damianos was not strong enough to do it, not even in the dark. Despite how inviting the night was, how much it prompted him to spill his secrets, Damianos did not want to let go of them. Not yet.

“My dreams were always of my father dying,” Damianos said. Bitterness rose in him. “I suppose I was a fool. I had so much confidence in my—in Kastor’s abilities that I never thought… I never really thought…”

His throat closed, making it hard to breathe. Just when the silence was growing thick again, Laurent decided to speak.

“They are not pleasant,” he said. Then, more hesitantly, “The dreams, I mean.”

Damianos turned his head to look at him. Despite the poor lighting the moon provided tonight, he could make out Laurent’s profile, the aristocratic curve of his nose and the soft chin some baby fat still clung to, stubbornly. He seemed even younger than Dion like this.

Laurent said, “They are not as bad now as they used to be back in Arles. I suppose distance always helps with… things.”

Unable to help himself, Damianos asked, “What was the war like for you?”

“I didn’t even leave the palace.”

“I know,” Damianos said and felt for the third time that day the urge to smile. In the dark, he allowed himself to relax, and the corners of his mouth moved upwards instantly. “But Auguste did leave. It must have been terribly hard for you.”

In a strange voice, Laurent said, “Why do you say that?”

“You can not possibly have known there would be a peace treaty from the beginning. There is no point in lying, Laurent, I already know you are not as awful as you want others to think. You must have been worried about Auguste even before he rode out of Arles.”

“I was.”

Damianos had once envied Laurent furiously. He had not been able to understand why he kept pushing Auguste away when it was so clear they both cared about each other. He still did not understand, but at least there were no more pangs of jealousy. Damianos envied him now for other reasons. Despite all odds, Auguste was alive. He had survived the war, the spear, the poisoned horse. Kastor had not outlived the sword.

“When your brother left, was there someone to comfort you?”

“Yes,” Laurent said. “In a way.”

“Then I’m glad,” Damianos said honestly. “I’m glad you weren’t alone.”

Laurent pushed himself up on the bed into a sitting position, and for a moment he sat, without speaking. Even though it was dark, Damianos watched him—barely making out his silhouette against in the moonlight—as Laurent pushed his palms into his eye sockets.

“What is it?”

He had never seen or heard Laurent cry. For a panic-filled moment, he thought that was what he was witnessing, but then Laurent lowered his hands and did not sniffle or sob, simply taking a deep and steady breath and laying back down on the bed.

“It’s nothing,” Laurent said. “I am tired.”

“Of course. I’ll let you sleep now.”

But Laurent did not seem to be ready to go to sleep, for he said, “Tell me a story.”

“A story?” Damianos asked in disbelief. “I don’t— _you_ are the one who’s always reading.”

“Please.”

Damianos gaped at him. When had Laurent asked so nicely for anything? “Any preferences?” he said if only to buy himself more time. Laurent, however, did not answer. “All right. Have you ever heard of Kassandra’s tale?”

“No.”

“She was a girl from a village up north, near Delpha. She—”

“Delfeur,” Laurent corrected him quickly in his haughty Veretian accent.

Damianos rolled his eyes in the dark. “Yes, _Delfeur_. She was rumored to be gifted. Her family was poor and sold her off to a man, but she ran away before he came to collect her.” He paused, thinking Laurent was going to add something. “No one knew who had told her about the deal, for it had all been done in secret, but there were rumors that—”

“—she could see things.”

“Laurent.”

“Yes?”

“Do you _know_ this story?”

“No.”

Damianos laughed. “Don’t lie, you little brat.”

“I’m not little,” Laurent argued, ignoring all accusations against him. “Now go on. I want to hear the part where she sets the village on fire.”

“Don’t you want me to tell you another tale? Something you have not heard before and do not know by heart, perhaps.”

“No,” Laurent said stubbornly. “I like this one. My brother used to read—” He stopped talking and the silence was so loud Damianos could barely hear his own thoughts. “I like this one,” he repeated.

Kastor had never read to him, but then again Kastor had never been interested in books. Neither had Damianos. Most of the things they had enjoyed doing together were outdoor activities, especially during the summer when their father let them do as they pleased, roaming the palace and the beach for hours on end.

Through his tight throat, Damianos said, “When the villagers found her hiding in the woods, she explained that it was her gift that had allowed her to know in advance what was going to happen to her. They were not pleased to hear this and called her a sorcerer. She then—”

“I thought she had set the village on fire before she left to hide in the woods.”

Damianos sighed. “I don’t know. Perhaps she did. The point is—”

“Well, it makes more sense that she set it on fire _before_ leaving,” Laurent continued to rant. “Otherwise, why would the villagers have gone looking for her? They were angry because of the fire, not because she had disappeared.”

“Laurent.”

“You’re telling it all wrong.”

Damianos sighed helplessly. “Fine. You tell it then and I’ll listen so I can learn how it is done.”

Laurent considered this for a second and then cleared his throat dramatically. “There once was a girl in a village up north whose name was Kassandra. After going back and forth about whether or not she should stay in her home—”

“It _rhymes_ ,” Damianos said, laughing. “You really know it by heart.”

“I thought you were going to listen.”

“I am listening.”

“You are also talking. Shut up.”

Damianos complied. He lay there and listened to Laurent’s perfect re-telling of the story, all the while thinking that Aesop was no longer the only one impressed by Laurent’s memory. At some point, Laurent’s voice faded away slowly and so did the moonlight and all the other noises in the room.

In his dream, Damianos saw a village burning. People whose faces Damianos did not recognize stood by with him to watch the flames. No one moved or said anything, and upon turning his head Damianos saw that his father was there, a bloodied sword dangling from his right hand. The grey and black smoke rose to the sky, obscuring the sun, and yet no one moved.

When he woke up again it was morning. He blinked and turned his head, mouth already opening to tell Laurent something nonsensical, but Laurent was not there. The room was quiet and empty as a tomb, as though Damianos had spent the whole night on his own.

In his head, the village went on burning.

*

Nikandros stopped mid-crouch, straightened, and said, “What are those two doing here?”

Damianos had been about to throw a spear but held onto it at the last second, turning around to see what Nikandros was talking about. Servants and guards knew better than to disturb their training, but perhaps something had happened. Something bad.

But as he turned around, Damianos saw there were no anxious messengers or worried guards. Instead, Laurent and Dion were walking towards them. The first with so much grace it looked as though he was bored, whereas the second… It seemed Dion was excited enough to forget his usual shyness.

“Laurent,” Damianos said, frowning. “Why aren’t you in your lesson?”

Standing next to Dion, Laurent looked even more like royalty than he usually did. His jacket this morning was the color of emeralds but not as sparkly. He looked stiffer than usual, too. Perhaps, Damianos thought hastily, something bad had happened and Laurent had come to warn him. Except that did not explain Dion’s easy smile or the way he kept shuffling his feet in excitement.

“Dion wants—” He broke off when Dion tugged at his sleeve. Damianos winced, convinced that Laurent was going to throw a fit over it, but Laurent only rolled his eyes. “ _We_ want to learn how to throw spears.”

Nikandros pursed his mouth. “You?” he asked Laurent. Then he turned to Damianos and clearly did not like the expression he saw on his face, for he said, “ _Don’t_. We have not even—”

“We can watch,” Dion whispered into Laurent’s ear.

“We can watch,” Laurent repeated loudly. “At first.”

Damianos fought the urge to laugh. Even though he had smiled and cackled the night before in the darkness of Laurent’s rooms, the daylight made everything harder. Nikandros was still pleading him with his eyes not to give in, but Damianos had already made up his mind.

“Where is Aesop?” he asked, stalling for time. He liked to watch the excitement grow in Dion and the frustration bloom in Laurent.

Laurent’s eyes narrowed. “He seemed a bit indisposed so the lesson ended earlier than usual.”

“Indisposed?” Damianos asked. “Was he ill?”

Dion tugged on Laurent’s sleeve again. Damianos braced himself, but Laurent surprised him once more by simply leaning closer so that the boy could whisper something in his ear.

“I know that,” Laurent told Dion, moving away. “And Damianos does, too. He’s the one that gave him the wine in the first place.”

Ah, the wine. Damianos smiled a bit. “All right, you can sit over there and watch me throw. When I’m done, I’ll teach you some techniques.”

Nikandros gave him a long look as the two boys sat on the only bench in the small arena. He went back to his leaps and pretended like it didn’t bother him to have two extra pairs of eyes watching his every move. Damianos, on the other hand, liked the attention. It gave him something to focus on that was not the ache in his arms as he threw the spear.

After demonstrating five different ways to do it, Damianos walked up to where they were sitting. Dion instantly stiffened, lowering his head a little. Laurent only watched him with a bored expression. Why, Damianos wondered, had he agreed to do this? There was little Laurent hated more than physical exercise _and_ asking for help. It must have cost Dion something big to convince him to do this.

“Do you still want to learn?” Damianos asked them.

“Dion does,” Laurent said.

Dion looked hurt. He leaned closer to Laurent and loudly whispered, “But you said you’d do it with me.”

Laurent pursed his mouth. “All right,” he said, standing up. “I want to learn too.”

“The most important part is the holding of the spear,” Damianos said, handing each of them a wooden stick. Dion took it and thanked him profusely. Laurent only yawned. “You need to hold it firmly but not too tightly. Like this.”

He watched the boys try to imitate him. Dion was a natural, even his feet were in the correct position, and he looked eager to throw. Damianos could not help but smile at Laurent, whose grip on the spear looked painfully tight. His little knuckles were the palest part of him.

“You need to relax,” Damianos told him. He brushed Laurent’s knuckles with his fingers, trying to get him to let go a bit. “Otherwise you’ll only manage to cramp your wrist.”

“I am relaxed,” Laurent said in a tone that implied he was not to be reprimanded again. “Focus on Dion. He’s the one interested in this… skill.”

Dion blushed furiously. “Laurent.”

_He does not call him Your Highness_ , Damianos noted. He remembered that Laurent had a particular dislike for the honorific, always scolding his guards for using it when they were not in the presence of others. It was… interesting.

“You should learn too,” Damianos said. “If not this then something else.”

Laurent curled his mouth in distaste. “Like what?”

Damianos thought for a moment. Wrestling was out of the question; even if Laurent showed interest, there was no way his tight Veretian clothes would make things easy for him. It was hard to imagine Laurent enjoying anything Damianos had to offer, but there were solitary activities that did not require a partner.

“How about archery?”

Laurent definitely had the hands for it: slim fingers and strong wrists. Damianos could picture him holding a bow perfectly, or even a lyre. Besides, archery was the sort of skill that demanded concentration and practice, but most importantly it was a one-person activity. Team sports and tournaments did not seem like the sort of thing Laurent would appreciate, not even with Dion as a companion.

“Isn’t there a saying about archers here?” Laurent asked. Then, answering his own question, he said, “Something about them being the biggest cowards.”

“They do fight from a distance,” Damianos conceded. “But that does not make a man a coward. Do you want to learn or not?”

Nikandros patted Damianos on the shoulder. “I can teach him.”

Laurent’s stick hit the ground with a loud thud. “No, he can’t.”

Dion was growing restless as he waited for instructions, so Damianos said, “All right. I’ll teach Dion some tricks while Nikandros shows you how to hold a bow.”

“I said—”

“I think he heard you the first time,” Nikandros said calmly. He’d already turned around, walking to the armory, but stopped when he realized Laurent was not following him. “Come with me, you’ll need to carry the arrows.”

“You have big hands,” Laurent replied. “I’m sure you’ll manage just fine while I wait here.”

Damianos tapped Dion’s right knee. “You need to bend this one a little more,” he said. Dion immediately did as he was told. “Good. Now, have you ever thrown a spear before?”

“No,” Dion said quietly, not meeting Damianos’s eyes.

Nikandros was walking towards Laurent again. “I’m not your servant. If you want to learn—”

“Damianos,” Laurent said loudly. “Your pet is being rude to me. Do something.”

Damianos focused on Dion’s face. He did not need to turn his head to know Nikandros was fuming, and rightfully so. “Well, all you have to do is make sure your back is straight so that you won’t hurt your shoulder.”

“My shoulder?” Dion asked. “But I’m throwing it with my hand.”

“Yes, but the muscles can rip if you—”

“—touch me,” Laurent was screeching. “Let go of my arm, you absolute brute.”

Damianos sneaked a glance at them. Nikandros’s fingers were circling Laurent’s wrist like a bracelet, pulling him away from the bench and forcing him to walk. He was over four times Laurent’s size and strong enough to beat Damianos at wrestling from time to time, so there was no way Laurent was getting out of his grip any time soon.

“Be nice,” Damianos called after them. They both turned to look at him, each convinced he was talking to the other. In reality, Damianos did not know who he had addressed. When Laurent’s protests had died down, he turned his attention back to Dion once more. “Make sure this muscle is doing all the work. Now, show me what you can do.”

As it turned out, Dion was _good_. In fact, he was good enough to surprise Damianos a couple of times that morning. He never complained, never faltered, not even when the spear slipped away from his clammy hands or when his throws were sloppy. He was resilient and eager to learn in a way Damianos had not seen in a very long time.

“You’re a great student,” Damianos told him after the fifteenth throw.

Dion’s smile was like the sun. “I have a great teacher,” he said and then, upon remembering who he was talking to, he added, “Exalted.”

Damianos had never asked others not to call him by his titles. He had never felt the need to. But then he thought of Laurent and the way Dion smiled around his name like it was the easiest Veretian word he had ever learned, and Damianos suddenly felt self-important and pompous.

“You can call me by my given name,” he told Dion. “I do not mind.”

Dion’s eyes widened comically. “I could never,” he said. Then, in a panic, he added, “I could if you asked me to. If you ordered me to. I mean, if you—”

“Well, you call Laurent by his name,” Damianos said swiftly. “I am no different from him.”

“ _Stupid dog_ ,” Laurent snapped in Veretian from inside the armory. Even though the wooden doors were closed, his voice still managed to travel all the way to Damianos’s ears. “Have you no shame?”

Nikandros’s reply was just as angry. “Did you just call me a maiden?”

Damianos watched Dion bite his lip. “His Veretian is not good,” he explained. “And Laurent’s is _too_ good sometimes.”

“Yes,” Dion said. He bent down to pick up the stick again. “One more?”

“Doesn’t your arm hurt already?”

“A bit. But I really want to learn, Exal— _Damianos_.”

Damianos reached out and ruffled his hair. It was strangely fulfilling. He had wanted to do it to Laurent a couple of times before but knew better than to actually try. Dion’s last throw was perfectly executed, a clean shot that cut through the air like an arrow, and when he smiled again Damianos felt like he had traveled back in time and was now standing in front of his old self.

_That’s it,_ Kastor said inside his head, beaming and full of pride, _Soon enough you’ll be better than me, Damen._

It hurt so badly Damianos had to hold in his breath, forcing himself to smile back at the child before him. Would it always be like this, day after day, for the rest of his life? Would he never be able to think about Kastor without feeling like something was clawing at his chest?

And yet… and yet… What a privilege it was, to ache so deeply. His brother would never feel pain again. Damianos found that no matter what he did or thought about, everything always boiled down to guilt. Would he ever be free of it?

_There is nothing to forgive._

“Come,” Damianos said when his voice returned to him. “Let us see what those two are fighting over now.”

Inside the armory, Nikandros was trying to get Laurent to choose a set of arrows. Damianos and Dion stood by the door, not wanting to disturb the scene playing before them, and watched as Laurent and Nikandros bickered about which bow was better and whether or not Laurent should wear gloves.

“Those are too heavy for you,” Nikandros said, watching with his arms crossed over his chest as Laurent moved closer to the bag of red arrows hanging off the wall. “It will take you twice as long to learn if you use them.”

Laurent shrugged. “I like a challenge,” he said and unhooked the bag. It fell to the floor, arrows scattering everywhere around him, but Laurent only shrugged again. “Why, those are too heavy. You should have warned me.”

Nikandros rubbed a hand over his face. “Just pick them up and go out to the arena so I can at least tell you how to hold a bow.”

Dion stepped in, moving away from Damianos. “I’ll help you,” he said, and bent down at the waist to pick up some of the arrows.

Nikandros gave Damianos a long look. Under different circumstances, Damianos would have laughed at his solemn expression. _Too much to handle?_ he would have said. But the jokes felt stuck in his throat. Looking at Nikandros, Damianos felt too raw and exposed to poke fun at anything.

When he shifted his attention back to Laurent, Damianos was pleasantly surprised. He had expected Laurent to stand and watch as Dion did his bidding, but that was not what was happening at all.The Prince of Vere was on his knees, handing one arrow at a time to Dion so he could slip them into the leather bag again. Their hands brushed more than once, and Damianos was surprised to see Laurent did not flinch away from the touch like he did with most people. Once all the red arrows were back in the bag, Dion stood up and offered his hand out to Laurent.

_He won’t take it,_ Damianos thought. _He’ll only sit there, looking at it disdainfully, and then he’ll push himself up on his_ —

Laurent took it. “Thank you,” he said as Dion helped him stand. “Did you have fun with Damianos?”

Dion blinked, probably trying to understand Laurent’s Akielon. It was the best it had ever been, yet Laurent found a secret pleasure in using long words and talking in circles, sometimes confusing his audience.

“Yes,” Dion finally answered. “Do you want me to help you carry these out?”

“It’s all right,” Nikandros intervened. “I’ll do it. Just… Walk your friend back to the arena. I want to have a word with Damianos.”

Laurent opened his mouth, probably to protest at the mention of him having a friend, but he closed it again when Dion started herding him towards the door. He was already rambling about the spear and how many throws he’d accomplished.

“—right foot. And the knee,” Dion was explaining to Laurent as they both slipped past Damianos and out of the armory, “has to be bent slightly. Not too much or you’ll lose balance. I can—”

“Do not ask me,” Damianos said when he and Nikandros were the only ones left in the small room. He even put his hands up, palms facing his friend. “I do not know how to handle him either.”

Nikandros huffed. “I think he called me a maiden once or twice.”

“My friend,” Damianos said, clapping Nikandros’s shoulder. _My brother_ , he thought. “He called you a dog.”

*

The ceiling above him was tinged orange by the candlelight, but Damianos still knew every crevice there was to know about it. He had spent entire nights staring up at it, unable to fall asleep, and by now he had committed every inch of it to his memory. He could see it even when he closed his eyes, that perfect whiteness that reminded him of cotton.

Laurent was pretending to read his book, and Damianos was pretending that the ceiling was a mystery he had not already discovered completely. Something was going to happen between them any minute now—an argument, a shouting match, a cold dismissal on Laurent’s part—and the knowledge of it made Damianos’s lungs ache.

They did not do this very often, but they did it often enough for Damianos to know that something was different about Laurent tonight. He had been silent all throughout dinner, and when Damianos had appeared into his rooms he had not been nearly as talkative as he usually was. In fact, Laurent had barely said ten words in the last couple of hours. Instead, he’d gone on reading as though Damianos was not there at all.

Except by now Damianos knew him better, knew that when Laurent was actually reading a book he devoured it, turning the pages so fast it was impossible to keep up with him. Tonight, however, Laurent had been staring at the same page for almost an hour, unmoving and silent as a statue.

Laurent closed the book but did not move to blow out the candle, something he usually did as soon as he was ready to go to sleep. He did not seem to like candles, at least not in his rooms. Damianos looked away from the ceiling and into his face, trying to work out the expression there, but it soon proved to be impossible. Sometimes Laurent was just too hard to read.

“I spoke to Jokaste this morning,” Laurent said, feigning casualty. It was the most unnatural Damianos had ever heard him. “Imagine my surprise when she said she’d told you the happy news.”

Damianos went back to staring at the ceiling. “I only heard about it last night,” he said, a touch too defensively. Why was he explaining himself to Laurent in the first place? “My father held a private meeting over it. He wanted to know what I thought he should do.”

“What was your advice?”

“I told him Jokaste was not lying,” Damianos said. There was an accusation in Laurent’s voice he did not like. “And that the child was to be born here.”

Laurent’s scoff forced Damianos to look at him. His eyebrows were arched in a way that meant trouble. “Only born? You mistake me for a fool, then.”

“Born and raised,” Damianos added sharply. It had been some time since Laurent had irritated him to this degree and he found himself out of patience for the task. “I won’t have strangers raising my nephew.”

A strange shadow clouded Laurent’s face. “I see,” he said.

“Go on,” Damianos said. “Say what you want to say and be done with it. I’d like to go to sleep before the sun rises.”

Laurent made a clicking sound with his tongue. Leaning against the headboard of his bed, he toyed with a strand of golden hair. If one were to look at him without paying too much attention, one could have mistaken him for Jokaste. The gesture, although more playful when executed by her, was just as graceful.

“How do you know she is telling the truth?”

“My father had a midwife examine her,” Damianos said. “It’s too soon to tell, but she’s yet to bleed this month. The woman said—” He stopped, suddenly aware of what he’d been about to say. The state of Jokaste’s breasts did not seem like an appropriate subject, especially not one that should be discussed with Laurent. “In a month or two, she’ll be showing. She is telling the truth.”

Laurent made a humming noise. “Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. But that is not what I asked you.”

“You said—”

“How do you know the child is Kastor’s?” Laurent’s voice cut through his. He looked and sounded upset, although Damianos could not begin to understand why. It was not his brother who was dead. “How do you know she has not lain with others?”

“I do not know, yet I can not simply stand by and allow my father to send her away. If there is a chance the child is his, then she must stay here.”

“You don’t even—”

“No,” Damianos said, surprising himself with the loudness of his own voice. “We are not discussing this. I will not hear another word about it. _Unless_ you’d rather I left you alone tonight.”

The glimmer in Laurent’s eyes was poisonous. Damianos knew, even before Laurent had taken in a breath or begun speaking, that the words that came out of his mouth would not be cordial. They would be nothing short of cruel, for this was how Laurent still behaved sometimes. He could be sweet one moment and sharp as a whip another. With him, there was no in-between.

“You can not wait to get your hands on that child, can you?” Laurent said. “He’ll be Kastor’s son as well as yours. Tell me, will you make him call you father?”

“Enough.”

“It is only natural after all. Men always want what they can not have.”

Damianos sat up so quickly it startled Laurent. “I said enough. If you wanted me gone you should have said so. There is no need for you to act like this.”

“Like ‘this’?” Laurent asked, eyes huge and furious. “Like _what_ , exactly?”

“Like a brat,” Damianos replied. “I thought we were past this, Laurent. I thought we—”

“You thought we were friends?” Laurent laughed. It sounded off. Like a lyre with its chords in dire need of adjustment. “You thought I’d stop telling you the truth only because you do not want to hear it? You have never wanted to hear it.”

_He’s trying to get me to leave_ , Damianos realized. It was like a tug of war, the sort of mental game Laurent liked to play on others. Whatever was troubling him was not this, but something else. Something he did not want to talk about. This was what Laurent did when he felt out of his depth: he snarled and bit and clawed.

“Fine,” Damianos said. “Let us speak of it. I’ll father no sons, no daughters. I have no brothers or sisters. Is it so wrong of me to be selfish about this one thing? If Jokaste goes away and raises that child on her own… Even if it is not Kastor’s,” he forced himself to say, despite the hurt that bloomed inside his chest at the thought, “then at least he won’t have to endure her on his own.”

“His?” Laurent said. “How do you know it’s a boy?”

“I don’t,” Damianos said slowly. He did not want to give Laurent any more knives to throw at him, especially not this one. “It is only a thought.”

“You have not answered my question.”

“I do not recall you asking me anything.”

Laurent frowned. “Will you raise the child as your own? It’d be easy now, all you’d have to do is claim to have—”

“No,” Damianos said and this time Laurent did flinch away from his thunderous voice. “She is— _was_ Kastor’s wife. And this is his child, not mine. I won’t lie about this.”

“You’d be doing him a favor,” Laurent said, ignoring him. “If the King thinks this is your son, then he will be treated like a prince. He’ll want for nothing.”

“No. Do not ask me this again, Laurent. I mean it.”

Laurent was silent for a moment. “It is done, then. You took the herbs.”

Damianos closed his eyes. There was no other subject he felt like discussing less than this one tonight. What could even be said about it? He’d drank the tea the Vaskian woman had given him, he’d munched on those blood-red flowers, he’d sipped that disgusting black water. He’d done it all while thinking of nothing but Kastor.

_There is nothing to forgive._ But there was, there would always be. All Damianos could hope for was that it had not all been vain, that the child was his brother’s, and that the Vaskian Midwife had not been a scammer.

_I’ll work my whole life to make it up to you._

But would a life be enough? Hadn’t Laurent once told him that one life never replaced another?

“Yes,” Damianos said. “I was under the impression you knew already.”

“I was not sure,” Laurent said. He leaned over the wooden table by his bed and blew out the candle without any warning. Then, more honestly, “I wanted to hear you say it.”

Damianos lay back on his improvised bed on the floor. He closed his eyes again, telling himself things would be better in the morning after he’d gotten some sleep, but as soon as he’d found a comfortable position Laurent’s voice broke the silence once more.

“Has my brother written to you?”

Auguste. Of course this was about him.

“No,” Damianos said. “I do not know why you keep asking me. If no letters have come through for you, then I have not received any either.”

Silence. Damianos turned his head a bit, trying to get the pillow into the right position again. Today’s training had been brutal and his whole body ached with every movement he made, no matter how slight. Falling asleep would be easy tonight.

“I told him not to write to me again.”

“Laurent,” was all Damianos managed to say.

He thought of Auguste’s letter, the only one he’d sent, and how desperate he had been to hear from his brother. For him to open Laurent’s first letter in weeks, only to read that he was not to correspond with him any longer…

“He must be busy,” Laurent said. He paused, maybe waiting for Damianos to agree, and then added, “Perhaps he’s forgotten to reply to your letter.”

For someone so keen on telling others the truth, Laurent did lie to himself an awful lot. If the roles were reversed, Damianos was sure Laurent would have said something cutting. Something mean. But Damianos was not like him, and he was older too. What good would it do to call Laurent out on his own self-indulgence? If he wanted to pretend the reason why no news of his brother had reached Akielos in almost a month was Auguste’s forgetfulness, then Damianos would not correct him.

“Perhaps,” he agreed, thankful for the dark that hid his expression from Laurent’s eyes. He did not want to be caught lying, not about this. “You should not worry about this. There is little you can do from here.”

“And if things were bad,” Laurent went on, voice going higher, “then surely we would have heard by now. If he had—if there had been an accident or a—a—”

Damianos reached out blindly for the bed. When his hand found the edge of the mattress, he moved it slowly until his fingers brushed against Laurent’s nightshirt. Finding Laurent’s hand was harder, and holding it was worse, for the angle was awkward and Damianos’s muscles ached. But when he did Laurent squeezed his fingers so tightly it was worth it.

“He must be terribly busy,” Damianos said with a confidence he did not feel. “And he has good people by his side, does he not?”

_Arles is full of snakes and traitors, some of whom my brother is fond of._

Laurent’s grip on his hand was almost painful. “Yes,” he said hesitantly, like he did not dare entertain such thoughts. “There is Jord. And Lazar, too. Although…”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know if Jord can walk yet, and Lazar still has to prove himself.”

Damianos tried to flex his fingers, but Laurent would not allow it. “What does Lazar have to prove? He was your guard before we came here.”

“That was only because Jord trusted him,” Laurent said. This was the most he had talked about his life back in Vere. “My brother liked him because he was fast, or at least that’s what he always told me. But I think…”

“You think…?”

“I think my brother wanted Jord to keep an eye on him too.”

Damianos’s thumb found the inside of Laurent’s wrist. He pushed at the spot, trying to get Laurent to relax enough so that blood could reach Damianos’s numb fingers. This they only did in the dark, not because there was something wrong about their hand-holding, but because Laurent would not allow anyone to see him being tender. Sometimes it was easy for Damianos to convince himself their hands had not touched at all during the night, that it all had been a dream.

He’d probably have finger-shaped bruises tomorrow as proof.

“Does Auguste think him a traitor?” Damianos asked. He resigned himself to let Laurent squeeze his fingers to his heart content. “It seems unlikely, Laurent. If he suspected of Lazar, he would have never placed you under his care.”

“He was my uncle’s man for a few months. I think Auguste was worried he might be loyal to him still.”

“Do you think he is?”

Laurent shifted a bit, loosening his grasp and allowing Damianos to move his fingers. “No, but Auguste did not trust him enough to send him here with me.”

“I thought you said your brother rarely saw the bad in others,” Damianos said, trying to get Laurent to relax even further. Instead, Laurent pulled away completely, leaving him with his hand empty and sore. “Laurent?”

Damianos sat up, trying to find Laurent’s face in the darkness, but he soon realized that would not work. Laurent had buried his head under his pillow, effectively ending the conversation. Straining his eyes, Damianos saw that the hand he had been holding was now curled around the spine of his book, almost protectively.

Muffled and from under the pillow, came Laurent’s voice. “There is something wrong.”

There was no possible way to light the candle again, not without leaving the room, and Damianos concluded that it would be partially difficult for Laurent to smack him in the dark. He moved his hand again, this time not aiming for Laurent’s fingers but for the hair that was sticking out from under the pillow.

The nape of Laurent’s neck felt hot and damp as though he’d been sweating despite the cold temperatures. He jolted a bit when Damianos touched him but otherwise stayed completely still. This was the sort of thing Kastor had done for him during thunderstorms, along with the olives and the games and the story-telling. Doing it to Laurent now felt as natural as ruffling Dion’s hair had felt like some days ago.

“There is nothing wrong with your brother,” Damianos murmured. “I promise.”

“You can not promise me that,” Laurent replied, still hiding his face into the mattress. “You can not promise me anything.”

“We will write him a letter in the morning, both of us. If he does not reply to that one, then I will talk to the Council. If something has happened in Vere, at least one of the ambassadors ought to know about it.”

Laurent wriggled away from Damianos’s touch, turning to face the window. “ _I_ will write. Your spelling will give Auguste a headache.”

Damianos let out the breath he had been holding since he’d reached out to touch Laurent. Half-meant insults. This was something Damianos could work with.

“I have seen your handwriting,” Damianos said, laying back down. “All those loops and twists… It’s enough to make anyone dizzy.”

“It is called calligraphy. Even Dion writes better than you do.”

“That is because Dion only knows how to write his own name.”

Laurent laughed, sort of. It was more like an exhale of air. “Quality matters more than quantity, Damianos.”

“I can see why you like him,” Damiano said, thinking of the way Dion had helped Laurent pick up the arrows without being asked to. “He seems nice.”

“Go to sleep,” Laurent ordered him. “We have to wake up early in the morning to write that letter.”

“And for you to practice your stance when holding the bow. Nikandros told me you’re still having trouble with that.”

Laurent’s reply came through instantly. “It is a heavy bow.”

_Please_ , Damianos thought into the void, _let him answer the letter._ He would not know how to calm Laurent down if another three weeks passed by without any news from Auguste. He had tried to sound confident when reassuring Laurent that nothing was wrong, but he was not sure of it himself. Auguste had survived everything that had been thrown at him, but it was known luck came and went like the tide. How many more spears could Auguste survive? How many cups of poisoned wine?

“Wake me up before you leave for breakfast,” Damianos said. “I want to make sure you eat something.”

There was no reply, but Damianos knew Laurent had heard him. He waited patiently, listening to Laurent’s breathing, and only closed his eyes when he was certain Laurent had fallen asleep. It was strange; Damianos usually gave into sleep first. Tonight, despite how tired he was and how much his body ached for slumber, he could not relax completely.

Now that he knew what it was like to lose a brother, Damianos could not think of a worse punishment. Laurent was maddening, rude, quick to anger, and irritating. Still, Damianos thought he could not bear to watch the child suffer a loss like that. Laurent’s parents were both dead. If something had happened to Auguste…

There was only Laurent’s uncle left. Perhaps the man would not hurt Laurent, at least not until he was closer to his ascension, but Damianos’s hatred for him had been festering for weeks. He’d rather take Laurent as a ward than have the man raise him. It was obvious Laurent would not want that, but in the dark Damianos promised himself that he would not allow Laurent to be left in his care if Auguste was dead.

Closer to dawn, Damianos finally fell asleep, thinking of nothing but the training he had to complete in the morning and the letter he had to write—or rather, that Laurent would write. There were no burning villages in his dreams that night, no spears or big hands over his shoulders.

He did not dream at all.

*

In the blink of an eye, the sun was out. Its light filled every inch of Laurent’s rooms. Damianos pushed himself up on his elbows, turning his head a bit to see if Laurent was awake, only to find the bed empty and unmade. That struck him as strange, for Laurent was particular about how he liked his bed to look like and this was not it.

Yawning, Damianos looked around the room and realized Laurent had not left but was simply standing by the window, his back turned to Damianos, still in his nightclothes. There was something off about him too. He had not changed into his other clothes already, something that very rarely happened, and the way he stood looked too rigid, too _wrong_ , his hand splayed on the white wall as if to support himself.

And then Damianos heard it. It was a loud sound, like a wail, cutting through the morning silence and making Damianos’s hair stand on end. A herald’s trumpet.

By the time he’d made it to the window where Laurent stood, silent as a ghost, the sound had already been repeated twice. The sunlight in his eyes made it difficult for Damianos to see properly, but Laurent pointed down, several miles away from the gates, to show Damianos where he was supposed to be looking. Laurent’s hand was shaking.

There, in the distance, the blue and golden banners of Vere were unmistakable. They stood out against the whiteness of the city, a contrast Damianos had never seen before in his life. A large party of men was riding into the capital, all of them divided into three neat lines, and the gallop of their horses could be heard even from where Damianos and Laurent stood. It sounded like a drum, shaking the earth.

Leading them all into the city was the King of Vere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! I had to split this into two parts because I did not have time to edit the next bit, which is why this chapter might have felt a bit off or incomplete. Unfortunately, I have three exams next week, so part 2 will be up on Saturday! Again, I'm sorry for the delay but real life does not seem to care about fanfiction for some reason.  
> Some quick notes:  
> \- There's a quote here from KR that I had to re-write for obvious reasons ("When you lost your brother, was there someone to comfort you?" - "Yes," said Laurent. "In a way").  
> \- Check out [this amazing drawing](https://altruistic-meme.tumblr.com/post/620322591785238528) by altruistic-meme that I found on Tumblr the other day!  
> \- If you have the time, check out [Absyrtus' myth!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absyrtus)  
> \- Yes, Aesop was totally inspired by Aesop the fable writer! I do not have a link to his stories, but I'm sure you can find them online. They're amazing!  
> Thank you for reading and stay safe!


	14. Twelve: Part II

**Twelve**

**Part II**

“We should be wearing armor,” Nikandros told him over the loud whispers. His hair was braided and tied back so it was out of his eyes. Should a fight break out, he wanted to be comfortable. “He has brought an army with him. Even the King thinks it’d be wiser to—”

“Fifty men are scarcely an army,” Damianos said as calmly as he could. “He has not come here to fight. The alliance still stands.”

Nikandros did not relax. He’d heard the Veretians before he saw them and had only had time to grab his sword, which he was now leaning on, both hands resting on the hilt. He was nervous, the way being around northerners always made him, and Damianos wished he could offer him a reassuring word or a comforting touch like he’d done to Laurent. And yet he found he could not. The distance between them seemed unbreachable and ever-growing, and now was not the time to address it.

Theomedes was standing near, surrounded by his guards and his new mistress. Damianos could not look at him for too long without feeling nauseous—yet another thing he could not deal with at the present moment. His beard was thicker and longer than Kastor’s had ever been, but the shade of the hair was the same. Damianos’s stomach was a knot he had no time or energy to untangle, and so he forced himself to look away from his father and focus on the road where the Veretians were yet to make an appearance.

Nikandros opened his mouth, his grasp on his sword tightening, but the sound of a horse approaching cut him off. A more diplomatic man would have sent the bannermen first to explain the motive of the unexpected visit, but Auguste either did not care for politics or simply could not be bothered to wait a minute longer. He rode past the gates and stopped only when his eyes found Damianos, pulling at the reigns until his horse was still and silent.

It was strange not seeing him in blue, but the deep red jacket Auguste was wearing was just as beautifully designed as all the other clothes Damianos had ever seen on him. The shirt underneath was bone white as though he’d just slipped it on and had had no opportunity to dirty it. When he dismounted, his black leather boots hit the ground and sent a cloud of white dust floating around him. The gravel crunched under his feet like tiny bones breaking into pieces as he approached the palace.

“King Auguste,” Theomedes said. His gaze kept flickering to the gates, expecting Auguste’s men to flood the place at any moment.

But no man came through. Auguste stood by himself in front of the royal family, his horse pacing in circles a couple of meters back, and scanned the crowd before him with a polite but bored expression. He looked too much like Laurent when he was trying to appear casual.

“King Theomedes,” Auguste said pleasantly. He extended his hand and gave Theomedes’s a firm shake. When his eyes found Damianos again, he smiled. “I take it you did not inform your father I was planning to visit.”

Damianos smiled back. Guilt bit at him when he realized how easily the gesture had come to him. “I did not expect you for another couple of weeks.”

Auguste eyed Nikandros’s sword. “It is my fault,” he said, turning to face Theomedes. “I should have sent word out that I was coming. I apologize for intruding so rudely—”

“You have done us no offense,” Theomedes said. He already seemed more relaxed, finally focusing on Auguste instead of watching the gates and expecting some sort of ambush. “Come inside. I imagine you are weary after such a long journey. Have you ridden all the way from Arles?”

Auguste watched as two slaves circled his horse to try and herd him towards the stables. “No,” he said and did not elaborate.

Once the servants had been ordered around— _prepare a room, prepare a feast, prepare the entertainment_ —Theomedes and most of the people gathered at the entrance disappeared into the palace, promising Auguste that they’d meet him at the dining hall after they’d had a chance to set everything in order.

“I have told my men they are to wait for instructions,” Auguste explained, probably noticing Nikandros’s inquisitive gaze. “They will give you no trouble. Most of them are down at the beach.”

Damianos gave Nikandros’s shoulder a squeeze, something he had not been able to do before. “Would you mind telling Dion that today’s lesson is canceled? He must be at the arena.”

“Of course,” Nikandros said stiffly without taking his eyes off Auguste.

It was clear he did not want to leave Damianos alone with Auguste, but Nikandros still did as he was told, circling the palace to avoid the hasty preparations going on inside.

Auguste’s hand was warm where it rested on Damianos’s shoulder, right over the spot where his chiton was held together by two golden pins. He pulled Damianos into a hug, something unbecoming of a king, and held him there for a moment.

Damianos did not know what to do with his hands. He considered Auguste a friend, but not even Nikandros had done this for him. It was stilted at first—Auguste’s hand on the nape of his neck felt strange—but when Damianos had finally let himself relax it was already over.

Auguste pulled back and held onto him by his elbows. “I am sorry,” he said, so gently it made Damianos feel uncomfortable. “I heard about Kastor last night.”

Damianos swallowed. He suddenly wished Nikandros had stayed; Auguste would not have said this in front of someone else. This was the first time Damianos had heard those three words. Not even Aesop had said he was sorry for the loss Kastor’s death represented, and as far as Theomedes was concerned there was no loss to be mourned in the first place.

The fact that Kastor had been the one to feed a handful of wild berries to Auguste’s horse only made everything more bittersweet and complicated.

“Thank you,” Damianos said even though he did not really feel grateful. Then, to change the subject, he continued, “None of your letters have come through, I’m afraid. Only the first one.”

“I am sorry to say I only wrote one. I have been away from Arles for some time.” Auguste clasped his hands behind his back and took a few steps back, admiring the palace. Out of nowhere, he commented, “Ios is a beautiful place.”

“Thank you,” Damianos said for the second time. Laurent would have probably told him he sounded like an idiot. _Laurent_. “Let me walk you to your brother’s rooms. He is—”

“That won’t be necessary,” Auguste said slowly. “If my brother wanted to see me, he would be standing here with you. Let us not bother him for now. I am sure…” He paused for a moment, blue eyes roaming over the palace once more. “I am sure I will see him at your father’s feast.”

Damianos frowned. “I don’t think—”

But Auguste was already moving away from him. “Are you busy this morning? I’d like you to show me around.”

“Of course,” Damianos said. It was cold out here, and for a moment he thought of offering Auguste a winter cloak or some furs, but upon closer inspection, he realized Auguste’s jacket was thicker than it looked, lined with wool on the inside. “We could head down to the beach first if you’d like.”

“Do not fret over my men. They won’t cause any problems. Unless charming young Akielon girls is a crime, you have nothing to worry about.”

“That is not why I offered,” Damianos said. “Laurent told me you like the sea.”

“Well,” Auguste replied, not as easily as before. “Lead the way then.”

They started towards the beach in silence. There were so many questions weighing down on Damianos’s tongue he did not know where to begin. He waited for Auguste to ask something first, to inquire after Laurent’s health and activities, but Auguste also remained quiet.

After far too long without speaking, Damianos said, “How are things in Vere?”

“Complicated,” Auguste said. The heels of his boots left strange imprints on the sand. “But when has Vere been easy to rule?”

The wind was more vicious here than at the palace gates. Damianos draped the cloak a little tighter around himself, still surprised that Auguste did not appear to be cold. Laurent had told him multiple times that the winters in Vere were atrocious, yet Damianos had been hesitant to believe him. It was known Laurent liked to feed little lies to the guileless about his country whenever he could. He’d once told Nikandros that in Vere a man was free to marry as many trees as he wanted.

“At least there is no war to worry about anymore,” Damianos offered.

“Sometimes I think a war would be easier,” Auguste said, watching the waves. His eyes were the same color as the ocean. “I do not dare complain about my duties lest someone hears me and thinks I support all those riots against me.”

Damianos stopped walking. “Riots?”

Like his brother often did, Auguste ignored Damianos completely. “Tell me, how have you been?”

This struck Damianos as odd. Why would Auguste inquire after his well-being but not Laurent’s? Perhaps he was still hurt that his brother had not been waiting for him at the gates, but he had not let Damianos explain that either. And there was something about the way he stood, hands still clasped behind his back in a too princely manner, that reminded Damianos of what Laurent had looked like as he’d gazed out the window earlier this morning.

“I am well,” Damianos said. It was partly true; he did not feel awful today. “I have been very busy. Laurent can be quite a handful when he wants to be, but you know that already.”

Auguste closed his eyes for a minute. “I hope he has been on his best behavior.”

“Auguste,” Damianos said, forgetting all about honorifics and titles and everything he had spent years learning. “If this is about Laurent’s letter… He was upset when he wrote it. You must not take his words to heart. He—”

“Thank you for your advice,” Auguste said, “but I am not angry with my brother.”

“Then let me escort you to his rooms. It was my fault he was not there when you arrived, I told him he had to get dressed and eat something first. I thought—I was hoping it was you leading those men, but I wanted to be sure.”

The wind blew through Auguste’s golden locks, making them sway. “If Laurent wanted to be there, he would have. There is no point in excusing his absence, Damianos. I am not upset about it. As I’ve told you before, he does not seem to be too fond of me nowadays.”

Damianos frowned, feeling out of his depth. Why were Veretians so complicated? “You have not seen each other in months, and Laurent misses you. I know he does. Surely you’ve missed him too.”

Auguste set his jaw. It was strange how much he resembled Laurent—the fair coloring, the stiff posture, the way he refused to be direct in his speech—and yet Damianos found himself thinking that when Laurent reached Auguste’s age, he would not look anything like this.

 _But when has Vere been easy to rule?_ At least Laurent would not have to worry about that.

“Of course I’ve missed him,” Auguste said, sharply enough to make Damianos stop walking. “He is my brother.”

The word would have usually sent a jolt of pain through Damianos— _Kastor, Kastor, Kastor_ —but this time Damianos was too distracted to give the ache his full attention. Auguste had called Laurent _brother_ a million times before, but this time it had sounded different. Sharper. As though he’d been trying to prove a point.

His own anger surprised him. It made the words tumble out of his mouth before he’d had time to gather his thoughts and decide if he really wanted to speak his mind about such matters.

“He is your brother and he is alive,” Damianos said just as sharply as Auguste had spoken to him. “Be glad for it and stop sulking. Not everyone is as lucky.”

Auguste offered him a small, sad smile. It was pity that softened his expression. “I had almost forgotten how honest you are.” He bent down to examine a small seashell, white and brown and blue. Straightening again, he said, “Has he been eating?”

“Not as much as I’d like him to, but yes. We eat most of our meals together. He seems to have a thing for pears.”

“He likes sweet things,” Auguste said. He angled his face away, looking at the ocean once more. His fingers closed tightly around the shell. “I suppose I could see him for a moment before the feast begins.”

 _For a moment._ Damianos decided to let that pass. “He has many things to tell you. Did he mention in his letter that he has made a few friends here?”

Surprisingly, Auguste did not seem happy to hear that. He turned to look at Damianos so quickly it was a wonder he did not become dizzy. “Has he been calling the guards his friends? That does not seem like him.”

“No, no. They are local children, not guards. One of them even takes lessons with Laurent every morning.” Damianos hesitated, but then decided that his question was innocuous enough to not be considered rude. He said, “Is there a problem with Laurent being friendly towards the guards?”

Laurent did not care much about the Akielon guards, not even about Pallas. He was not excessively rude towards them, but it still seemed strange of Auguste to worry about such things. In Arles, Laurent had seemed to like the members of the King’s guard, especially Jord. Damianos found it hard to believe that Auguste held such prejudice towards Akielons. After all, he’d been the one to send Laurent here.

“Not at all,” Auguste said. He was now playing with the shell, running his thumbs over it almost obsessively. It was the sort of thing Laurent did when he lied: he’d busy his hands on a simple task. “Children, you’ve said? Have there been any problems?”

Damianos did not need to ask Auguste what he meant by that. He was asking if Laurent had tried to drown any of them in the sea, similarly to what he’d tried to do to Aimeric back in Vere. That incident was still a mystery to Damianos, who’d asked Laurent more than once why he’d attacked the other boy, only for his question to be completely disregarded.

“Not at all,” Damianos said, echoing Auguste’s words back at him. The sight of the docks made Damianos stop walking again. “We’ve seen enough for now. Let us head back before my father believes I have run off with you back to Arles.”

“You’d be more than welcome to come,” Auguste said. He complied easily, as though he did not have the power to order Damianos to keep walking if he really wanted to. “After everything you’ve done for my brother…” A pause. And then, “Has he been sleeping?”

Damianos bit back a smile. Auguste was so much easier to read than Laurent that it was hard not to be amused by his poor attempts at concealing his eagerness to hear from his brother. He had not been like this in Vere, always open to talk about how much he cared, not only about Laurent but for his people as well, and Damianos wondered what could have happened in the span of two months to make him change so drastically. He seemed to carry himself in a different way now, cautiously.

“Perhaps you should ask him.”

Auguste looked down at the shell in his hand. It was smaller than the ones Laurent usually brought to the palace after an afternoon spent playing with the boys, but it was exotic in its colors. It was the sort of thing a commoner might use to decorate their home.

Kastor had never liked them—both the commoners and the shells he’d thought were beneath him.

“Perhaps I should,” Auguste replied. For the first time since he’d arrived, he looked hopeful.

*

Dion was sitting on the bottom step at the entrance, watching the slaves come and go in a frenzy with fruit baskets, wine bottles, cloth, and silver goblets. He had on a cloak far too large and expensive for him, royal in the details and the quality. It was deep-sea blue, the one Damianos had told Laurent a million times to wear should he go outside during winter.

“There is someone you should meet,” Damianos told Auguste as they approached the white steps. As soon as he saw them coming, Dion got to his feet. “He is one of Laurent’s friends.”

Auguste blinked. He too had noticed that the boy was wearing his brother’s cloak. “Hello,” he said, and Damianos got to witness firsthand how soft his voice became around children. He’d thought he only spoke that way to Laurent because he was his brother, but apparently Damianos had been wrong. “Are you warm enough?”

Unlike Auguste, Dion did not blink for a long time. His eyes were open so wide Damianos had to fake a cough to keep from laughing out loud. “I—you—Your Majesty, I—”

“Damianos tells me you are friends with my brother,” Auguste said, politely ignoring the child’s blabber in order to not embarrass him. Then, face almost flushing, he added, “Oh. Do you not speak Veretian?”

“He does,” Damianos said for him. “A bit, at least. Laurent often finds pleasure in reminding everyone who’ll listen that his friend speaks better Veretian than Nikandros.”

Auguste laughed. It sounded genuine and uncomplicated, the sort of sound Damianos had only heard from Laurent in the darkness of his rooms. “What is your name?” he asked Dion in Akielon. His accent made Damianos's smile even wider.

Dion only stared at them, open-mouthed.

“It’s Dion,” Damianos said. Then, because he liked the way Dion was blushing, he added, “According to Laurent, his handwriting is better than mine, too.”

“Well, Laurent seems to think very highly of you,” Auguste told the boy, still smiling. He lowered his voice a fraction, giving the words a secretive feel about them, and said, “He does not often like to share his things, let alone his clothes. You two must be really good friends for him to lend you his cloak.”

“I’m—I forgot mine at home,” Dion spoke rushedly, fingers already pulling at the knot that kept the cape on him, trying to shrug it off. “This one is warm.”

“Then why are you taking it off?” Auguste asked. “You’ll get sick in this weather. Are you leaving already or will you stay for the feast?”

Damianos did not think his father would appreciate a fisherman’s son sitting at the table with them, and the thought only made Damianos want Dion to stay even more. Anything that displeased Theomedes was guaranteed to make Damianos feel better, if only for a short period of time.

“You can stay,” he told Dion, who was already shaking his head. “Unless you are needed back home.”

“My mother needs help with my sisters,” Dion said. He seemed to find it easier to look at Damianos than Auguste, yet every once in a while he would lower his gaze to the ground. “Should I come back tomorrow?”

Damianos nodded, feeling only a bit disappointed. “Of course. The lessons will go on as usual after today. Is Laurent still in his rooms?”

Dion nodded. “He did not eat breakfast,” he whispered with a frown. “Perhaps he is ill. My brother gets ill sometimes.”

Damianos could not help but laugh. Laurent had told him more than once that Dion’s brother liked to eat strange things and would often find himself bedridden for days after one of his exotic meals. _He eats raw fish_ , Laurent had whispered to him once in the dark, _Aeneas said it and so it must be true._

“I am sure he is fine,” Damianos said. “Auguste and I will eat breakfast with him this morning.”

Glancing at Auguste, Dion whispered, “I brought him a pear from the kitchens.”

“Oh,” Auguste said, a bit startled. “Thank you.”

Dion opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again after a moment. Pulling the cloak tighter around him, he skipped down the marble steps and offered both of them an awkward bow before sprinting off towards the city.

Damianos started walking, side-stepping some of the slaves as they rushed back outside to get more wine and herbs, but he stopped before he had reached the doors when he noticed Auguste had not followed. He turned around and found him staring at the spot Dion had just vacated.

“He has friends.”

“Yes,” Damianos said. “I told you at the beach, remember?”

“I did not think—” Auguste broke off, laughing. He threw his head back and gazed at the morning sun. There were plenty of clouds, but Auguste looked like he’d been thawed back to life by the golden beams. “He has _friends_.”

The entrance hall was buzzing with energy. Wooden chairs were being carried around from one place to the other along with golden platters and heavily decorated ceramic plates. Auguste looked almost sheepish standing in the middle of all this chaos as if thinking _this is because of me_. Damianos imagined his father’s headache at the whole thing and smiled.

He guided Auguste up the stairs, pointing at the few statues and tapestries that Auguste seemed to be interested in and explaining their meaning. The climb was meticulously slow, every step calculated and unrushed. If Damianos had not noticed it before, he did now: Auguste was nervous.

The door to Laurent’s rooms was closed but not locked. Still, before pushing it open, Damianos rapped his knuckles on the wood and waited. Auguste was standing behind him, his breathing almost non-existent, and Damianos heard him shift his weight from foot to the other just as Laurent’s voice came at last through the door.

“Come in.”

Auguste’s hand found Damianos’s over the doorknob. Quietly, so Laurent would not hear him, he said, “Perhaps you should go in first to let him know I’m here. I do not wish to ambush him like this.”

Damianos rolled his eyes. “Knowing him, he’s probably standing by the door, listening. He knows you’re here already.”

The room was absolutely impeccable. The bed had been made, the pillows fluffed, and the desk was so tidy—not a paper out of place, the inkpot and quill unnaturally placed on the corner—it made Damianos want to laugh. Laurent had always kept things organized, but never like this. It was so painfully obvious he had cleaned the whole room because he knew Auguste was coming that Damianos almost felt compelled to call him out on it.

“Laurent,” Damianos called, trying to get Laurent to turn away from the window and face them. Auguste was still waiting by the doorway, as though he wanted to hear Laurent’s explicit permission to set foot in his rooms. “What have you been doing all morning instead of having breakfast?”

Laurent did not turn around. “I was watching the road.”

Even his clothes were out of the ordinary. He was wearing the tightest vest Damianos had ever seen on him, and a long-sleeved shirt underneath that was the color of milk. The laces on the back looked so complicated and intricate Damianos had no doubt it had taken him more than a few minutes to get dressed today. He looked immaculate.

“I will be back soon with something to eat,” Damianos said. This moment already felt too intimate, too brotherly, and Damianos felt like an intruder. He’d go into the kitchens and bring the platter back himself, only to give them more time alone. “Any preferences?” he asked, turning to face Auguste.

Auguste shook his head, not looking at him but at Laurent’s back. He had not said a single word since Damianos had opened the door, but he did not have to. _My brother does not know how to keep his emotions off his face_ , Laurent had told Damianos once. Where Laurent was secretive, Auguste was an open book. They had never seemed more different from each other than they did now.

As soon as he’d slipped back into the hall, Damianos closed the door behind him and leaned against it for a moment, holding his breath. There was only silence. When the moment had passed, he pushed himself away from the door and made his way back to the stairs, telling himself that he had been in the right to convince Auguste of seeing Laurent before the feast.

The kitchens were ten times more chaotic than the entrance hall had been. Damianos stood by the door and asked one of the cooks to give him a bowl of fruit, basking in the beautiful scents around him. The bread was being baked and the soup was being stirred, and Damianos was reminded for the first time since Kastor had gone that there was beauty in food. It brought people together; it was a celebration.

The cook offered to carry the tray—fruits, nuts, water, and bread—but Damianos refused. Not only did he not want to add to their workload, but he also did not wish for anyone to interrupt whatever was happening upstairs. He’d carry the tray and stall for time by himself until going inside Laurent’s rooms could not be postponed any longer.

When his arms had gotten tired of holding the tray and his legs ached a bit from pacing up and down the hall, Damianos knocked on Laurent’s door. This time, it was Auguste who told him to come in.

“It seems Dion took the last pear,” Damianos said, trying not to sound as nervous as he felt. He kept his eyes on the tray and only looked away from it after he’d set it down on the table near Laurent’s desk. “He—”

But the words died away on his lips. He could not even remember what he’d been about to say, could not have even come up with an alternative even if he’d been asked to. All the air in his lungs escaped him as though he’d just taken a kick to the ribs. Now that there was nothing else to focus on, he _did_ feel the ripples of pain.

_Kastor._

Laurent had both arms around Auguste’s waist, face pressed into his brother’s chest. On his part, Auguste had one hand splayed on the back of Laurent’s head, keeping him there, and the other one on his back, rubbing wide circles in the narrow space between Laurent’s shoulder blades.

Had Damianos ever seen them embrace before?

Auguste smiled at him over Laurent’s head. Looking down, he murmured, “You should eat something. Damianos has brought us fruit.”

Laurent’s reply was too muffled for Damianos to make out the words.

“All right,” Auguste said so softly Damianos almost did not hear him either. “I’ll peel it for you.”

Damianos looked away, feeling a strange mixture of guilt and bitterness. “I should go. Nikandros must be wondering where I am.”

Auguste’s expression changed, became somewhat darker. “Stay,” he said. Was it an order? “Have breakfast with us.”

Before he could refuse, Laurent did it for him. Disentangling himself from his brother’s arms, he said, “Damianos eats like a beast. He’ll put you off your food.”

Laurent’s eyes were dry and clear, Damianos noticed. He had not been crying.

“I thought I ate like a savage.”

“A savage,” Laurent said, “ _and_ a beast. They are not mutually exclusive terms.”

“At least I’m not a dwarf,” Damianos said without thinking.

“Auguste says I’ve grown since the last time he saw me.” Then, turning to his brother, he said, “Tell him.”

Auguste shared a look with Damianos. “He is taller than before,” he said. “Don’t you agree?”

“Not really.”

Laurent ignored him. He was too busy staring at Auguste to bother with a response. “Did Jord come with you?”

“The physician would not let him,” Auguste said. “One of his legs has been giving him trouble.”

“Does he have a limp?”

Auguste brushed Laurent’s fringe away from his eyes. “He does, but it’s nothing to worry about. The phy—”

“Why are you calling him that?” Laurent cut him off, irritated. “His name is Paschal.”

 _It seems Auguste is rather fond of trials._ Damianos had to close his eyes for a second, trying to forget how annoyed he’d been with Kastor that day. That was not how he wanted to think of him. That was not the Kastor he’d loved.

Clearing his throat, Damianos said, “Would the two of you like to go riding tomorrow? Perhaps some alone time would—”

“No,” Auguste said and this time the order in his voice was unmistakable. Even Laurent seemed surprised by it, taking a step back. “I’d rather we didn’t.”

“Why not?” Laurent asked. “Ios is safe. I play at the beach all the time.”

Damianos held Auguste’s gaze. He did not like to be ordered around in his own house, not even by a king, but Auguste’s face was so solemn it made Damianos wonder what his reasons for shying away from an afternoon ride could be. Was he scared someone would poison his horse again?

“I only meant… You should join us,” Auguste said in a strained voice. “Perhaps you could bring Nikandros with you as well.”

“All right,” Damianos said, simply because he did not want to argue about this too. He sat down at the table and selected the greenest apple in the bowl, biting into it out of boredom. Offhandedly, he commented, “Laurent has been learning archery.”

Laurent glared at him as he sat down to eat as well. He scooted closer to his brother as if to prove his distaste for Damianos. “It is a pointless skill. I’m only doing it because Nikandros begged me to.”

Damianos laughed.

“Tell me about your friends,” Auguste said, grabbing an apple and the only knife in the tray. He peeled the whole fruit in three clean strokes and handed it to Laurent. “I already met Dion, but Damianos mentioned there are others.”

Damianos waited for Laurent to correct him as he always did. _They are not my friends_ or _It is only because I am bored that I play with them_ or, Damianos’s personal favorite, _I simply can not stand to be around Damianos all day long._ But when he turned to look at Auguste, Damianos realized Laurent would say none of those things. Auguste’s smile was too wide, too happy, and Laurent would not want to see it disappear.

“They are nice,” Laurent settled for saying. “Did Lazar come with you?”

“Yes. He’ll be ecstatic to know you’ve missed him.”

Damianos laughed at Laurent’s expression. “He has not stopped talking about him since he came here. _Lazar is so fast, Lazar knows the best insults, Lazar_ —”

“Shut up, you brute.”

“Laurent,” Auguste said, half-reprimanding him and half-laughing at him. “Be nice.”

Laurent blinked at him. “I am always nice.”

Damianos extended his arm, pointing at a dotted scar on his forearm. “He bit me there,” he said to Auguste. “And my shins will never be the same. He kicks like a mare.”

Auguste reached out to touch Laurent’s hair again. “I would not know, Damianos. He’s never kicked me.” He paused for a second, giving the golden locks his full attention. “Your hair is long. Doesn’t it bother you?”

Laurent bit into his peeled apple. “No. It’s not that long. Tell me, what did Paschal say about Jord’s legs? He won’t limp forever, will he? And even if he does, he can still be a guard, right?”

“Jord is fine,” Auguste said slowly. “He was very sorry he could not come to see you.”

“Why did you bring so many men with you?”

Auguste’s eyes flashed to Damianos. “There were some things in the south I had to take care of. Now, you have not really told me anything about these friends of yours. What are their names?”

Damianos did not breathe a word, watching as Laurent lowered his apple and stared hard at Auguste. He was focused now, all excitement and giddiness at his brother’s arrival were dimming out, disappearing and leaving behind only the sharp assessment Laurent was known for.

“What sort of things?”

“The boring sort,” Auguste replied. “Discussions regarding grain stock and trade routes to the capital.”

 _He’s lying_ , Damianos thought. And if he’d noticed it, Laurent obviously had too.

“There were more than thirty men riding with you today,” Laurent said. “Are you telling me they are all experts in the economy?”

Damianos coughed into his fist. “Perhaps we should—”

But Laurent was not backing down. “Where in the south? Did you go to Lys?”

“No,” Auguste said, clearly taken by surprise by Laurent’s suggestion. His expression hardened after a moment’s consideration. “What’s in Lys?”

“Nothing. Where did you go?”

“Chasteigne. Why did you say Lys, Laurent?”

Damianos put his apple down, feeling nauseous. He’d never enjoyed Laurent’s mood swings, but watching him oscillate between happiness and _this_ was more than just displeasing. Sometimes it felt as though Laurent was two different people crammed together in one single body: the sweet, bookish boy and the cruel, cold brat.

Auguste was determined too, for he repeated his question a third time. “Why did you think I had gone to Lys?”

“There isn’t a reason,” Laurent said, lying better than Auguste by miles. His voice was smooth and calm like he’d practiced saying this over and over again in his head. Knowing him, he probably had. “I simply wondered.”

Damianos decided he’d intruded enough in their reunion. Pushing himself away from the table, he stood up and stretched his arms behind his back. His half-eaten apple seemed to stare at him accusingly, but Damianos ignored it. Wasting food had always felt sinful, but the thought of forcing himself to finish the fruit was already making him dizzy.

“I’ll see you both at the feast,” he said. Then, to Auguste, he added, “I’ll speak to my father about showing your men the same hospitality you showed us when we visited Arles. They will all have beds by tonight.”

Auguste rose from his seat before Damianos had even had time to turn for the door. “Let us go together then,” he said, carefully avoiding Laurent’s gaze. “I have to speak to your father too.”

Laurent looked down at the table. He was trying to hide his face, trying to wipe his expression clean, but Damianos saw what was hiding behind that blank mask he often slipped on when he did not want others to read his mood. Auguste’s sudden urge to leave had stung him deeply.

“I’ll send for you when I am done,” Damianos said, trying to compromise. When Laurent looked at him there was no gratefulness in his eyes, but Damianos pushed through anyways. He knew Laurent wanted Auguste to himself for a little longer. “There are many things you two need to talk about.”

“Those things can wait,” Auguste said in a voice that left little room for arguments, “but what I need to discuss with your father can not. I’d go on my own, but I am not familiar enough yet with the palace to know where his chambers are.”

Damianos could not outright deny him anything. Even if they were friends, Auguste was a king. The whole conversation had felt strange, as though Auguste was holding something back from them both, but Damianos did not dare ask about it in front of Laurent. Whatever was happening, it was clear Auguste did not want his brother to be included.

In fact, Auguste could have asked Laurent to accompany him to Theomedes’s rooms. After so many weeks of living here, Laurent was almost as familiar with the palace as Damianos was. The fact that Auguste had not even considered him an option seemed to Damianos like the biggest kind of dismissal.

“Come with me then,” Damianos said, avoiding Laurent’s gaze too. It was easier like this. “I’ll walk you there.”

Laurent stayed where he was and did not say another word, watching them go in complete silence. Even his face seemed dull, devoid of any anger, but Damianos knew him better than to believe that that was the truth. He’d noticed the way Laurent had started biting his cheek.

“Later,” Auguste said in a low voice the second the door had closed behind them. He must have heard Damianos’s questions without him even having to voice them. “I’ll explain everything after the feast.”

Damianos arched an eyebrow. It was a gesture he’d picked up from Laurent. “Everything?”

There came a noise from inside the room that not even the thick wood of the door could muffle completely. It sounded to Damianos like steel clashing against a rock. Belatedly, he realized it must have been the breakfast tray hitting the floor.

Auguste gave the closed door a long look, as though he was debating with himself whether or not to go back inside. Finally, he sighed and turned away. “Everything,” he said firmly.

Damianos thought of Laurent’s face and said nothing.

*

The feast was sixteen courses long. There were dark wooden bowls brimming with toasted wheat and chestnuts all over the large tables in the dining hall, and the silver cups and golden goblets remained fool throughout the whole meal. Auguste’s men seemed pleased by the attention, eating and drinking to their hearts’ content but not really mingling with the rest of the Akielons sitting at their tables. Damianos found himself watching the slaves carefully, hands sweating when he thought of one of them spilling wine all over Kastor’s clothes as it had happened in Kesus.

And then, slowly and stupidly, Damianos remembered that his brother was dead.

Sitting by his father, it was harder than usual to avoid his booming voice as he and Auguste talked of ships and grain stock. Damianos tried his best to ignore him anyway, focusing on draining his cup of wine. He avoided Nikandros’s questioning gaze from across the room and told himself there were bigger things to worry about.

Laurent had not come down to eat and neither had Jokaste. This did not surprise Damianos in the slightest; neither of them had ever enjoyed family meals. Aesop’s absence did not strike him as odd either, for the man was particular about the sort of company he liked to keep as he ate. _Bad company gives me indigestion_ , he’d told Damianos more than once.

It made Damianos burn with envy. He did not want to be here either, and yet he could not leave.

Across from him sat Auguste, a strained smile on his face as he listened and nodded along to Theomedes’s suggestions in political matters. That made Damianos feel marginally better; at least he was not the only one hating every second of this feast.

The last course consisted of a honey and apple bread which Damianos did not even touch. He stared at it, thinking of the apple he had left half-eaten in Laurent’s rooms earlier that day, and felt the guilt climb up his throat until it was all he could taste in his mouth.

“I’ll be back,” Damianos said, feeling his father’s questioning eyes on him as he stood. Auguste was looking at the plate in Damianos’s hand. “I want Laurent to eat this while it’s still fresh.”

Theomedes frowned. “Let one of the slaves take it to him.”

Damianos glanced at Auguste, hoping he’d offer to do it instead, but Auguste remained silent. Grinding his teeth, Damianos repeated himself. “I’ll be back.”

As soon as he’d set foot outside of the dining hall, silence engulfed him. He had not realized how loud it had been inside, but he could not imagine himself walking into that chaos again. A headache was beginning to take form at his temples, stemming from both his frustration and the strain of having to make idle conversation for so many hours, and so he resolved that he’d drop the dessert off at Laurent’s room and go to sleep straight after.

Using his right hand—the one that was not carefully balancing the plate and the silver spoon—Damianos knocked twice on Laurent’s door. He waited a moment and then tried again, wondering if Laurent had already gone to bed. If he had, Damianos reasoned, perhaps it’d be wiser to simply eat the dessert himself and forget his poor attempt at a good deed.

And yet… Damianos knew Laurent did not usually go to sleep so early. The sun had set less than one hour ago, and Laurent was probably still buzzing with energy from seeing his brother after so long. It made more sense for him to be reading or even gazing at the stars through his window.

He knocked a third time and, seeing as there was no answer, he simply pushed the door open.

The room was completely dark, which made Damianos turn his head to the bed as soon as he’d slipped inside, rationalizing to himself that Laurent was, indeed, asleep. Yet the bed was made and empty, the same way it had been when Damianos and Auguste had walked in this morning.

Once his eyes had adjusted to the lack of light, Damianos noticed the silver tray on the floor, fruits and slices of bread scattered around it. He almost smiled, thinking he had guessed right before—that _had_ been the noise he’d heard standing outside with Auguste—but the smile died on his lips when his eyes found Laurent.

Damianos’s fingers found the small leather pouch that dangled from his neck and pulled at it, untying the knot that kept it in place. He could not see Laurent’s face in the dark and so he had no way of knowing if Laurent’s eyes were open or closed. He did not think Laurent was even blinking.

He kneeled next to Laurent’s chair, leaving the plate forgotten on the floor, and held his breath for a second, feeling the pressure inside his skull increasing and becoming more painful. “Laurent?” he asked. “Are you—”

Laurent’s head snapped up and to the right so quickly Damianos was startled into silence. It was hard to make out his expression, but they were close enough now that Damianos could see him blinking rapidly.

“What are you doing here?” Laurent asked. His voice was dry as if he’d not had anything to drink all day. He probably hadn’t. “Is it night already?”

Damianos rose to his feet and left the pouch on the table, not bothering to tie it back around his neck. For a split-second, he thought of telling Laurent to wait here while he went to get Auguste, but he banished the idea from his mind as soon as it had appeared. There was no guarantee Auguste would come, and leaving Laurent alone like this in the dark felt wrong.

“Can you make it to bed on your own?” Damianos asked. It wasn’t the dark he was worried about—Laurent probably knew every inch of his room by heart—but rather that Laurent’s legs would give out from under him if he tried to move.

“I don’t—why are you here?” Laurent pressed. “How long—”

“Hold onto my arm,” Damianos said, ignoring his questions. He could not imagine a worse time to explain anything. “Be careful when you stand up, your legs are probably numb.”

Laurent’s fingers were ice cold when he curled them around Damianos’s forearm to hold himself up. He hissed when he took the first step. Damianos almost winced, thinking of the million pinpricks Laurent must have been feeling all over his body.

“Can you do the laces on your own?” Damianos asked him once Laurent was sitting on the edge of the mattress. It had taken them a long time to walk there. He only got silence as a response. “The laces on the back of your vest, Laurent. Do you need help with them?”

Laurent moved, arm disappearing behind his back. Damianos could not make out what Laurent was doing, but he hoped he was pulling at the laces and doing it properly. Veretian clothing was hard enough for him to figure out during the day, but in the dark it was impossible.

“I’ve brought you something to eat,” Damianos said, trying to make conversation as he tugged at one of Laurent’s boots. “It’s not fruit.”

“I do not want it,” Laurent said in a drowsy voice. He was not even trying to be rude, something he often found pleasure in. He shrugged the vest off and dumped it on the floor next to Damianos. “Let go of my leg. I can do that on my own.”

Damianos retrieved his hands. “You need to eat and drink some water. It’s been hours since you had breakfast.”

Laurent kicked his remaining boot off and fell backward onto the bed. He offered no reply.

Sitting down next to Laurent, Damianos said, “Do you want me to go get Auguste?”

“No.”

“Laurent.”

Laurent’s cold fingers closed around Damianos’s wrist. “Don’t.”

Damianos rubbed at his temples. He felt exhausted as though he had not had a single moment to himself since he’d been dragged out of bed this morning by the herald announcing Auguste’s arrival. It all seemed so distant, almost like it had happened weeks ago, and yet only a few hours separated that moment from the present.

He wondered what would have happened if he had not come to see Laurent. Would Auguste have even bothered to check on him before going to sleep? The thought of Laurent sitting on that chair the whole night, lost inside his head, made Damianos want to retch.

Laurent’s breathing had evened out when Damianos was not paying attention. For a while, Damianos sat there watching him, thinking that Laurent was only pretending to be asleep. But the minutes passed and Laurent did not move, not even when Damianos let out a frustrated sigh.

Damianos’s head continued to throb impetuously.

A knock on the door made him freeze. He did not relax when he saw it was Auguste, still laced up and stiff in his red jacket. If anything, he felt angrier than before, remembering how he’d stayed quiet when Damianos had offered to bring Laurent some food.

Auguste walked up to the table and set the candle he was holding next to leather pouch Damianos had dropped there. He moved so gracefully it was hard to look away from him, first inspecting the mess on the floor and then slowly making his way to the bed. His hair glowed in the candlelight, a perfect halo that framed his face and made his eyes look even more blue than usual.

“Let me tuck him in,” Auguste said softly, “and then we can talk.”

Damianos nodded and stood up, hovering by the bed for a few minutes, unsure of where to put his body. He watched as Auguste gently pushed Laurent into a sitting position to move him closer to the center of the mattress, only for Laurent’s head to loll to the side and end up resting against Auguste’s shoulder.

Laurent stirred in Auguste’s arms, one of his hands fisting the front of his brother’s shirt. Damianos braced himself for the argument that would follow when Laurent opened his eyes—he’d complain about the lit candle, about being manhandled like that, about Damianos still being in his rooms—but Laurent’s eyes remained closed. Auguste stilled completely, caught off guard, and did not move for a long time.

Laurent’s grasp on his brother’s shirt was loose, made soft by sleep. If Auguste pried his fingers open Laurent would not stir again. He would probably not even notice that whatever he’d been holding onto had gone. Yet Auguste simply sat on the bed, back against the wooden headboard, and held Laurent to his chest as he reached blindly for the wool blanket.

“Is this your way of delaying our conversation?” Damianos asked.

Auguste spread the blanket over Laurent, running a hand down his back to smooth out the wrinkles. Tilting his head upwards to avoid getting a mouthful of his brother’s hair, he said in a low voice, “We can still talk.”

“We’ll wake him up,” Damianos argued.

“We won’t,” Auguste said. “He’s a heavy sleeper, always has been.”

Damianos circled the bed, trying to get a glance at Laurent’s face—perhaps, he thought, Laurent was only pretending to be asleep so he could listen in on their conversation—but Damianos soon found it impossible. Laurent had buried his face in the crook of Auguste’s neck, hiding it from view. In addition, the blanket seemed to cover everything but his hair, making it hard to see if his body was lax or not.

“Was it truly necessary for you to climb into bed with him?”

Auguste did not reply right away. His fingers carded through Laurent’s hair carefully, disentangling the knots and scratching at the nape of his neck. This time Damianos did look away, unable to stomach the scene before him any longer. He stared at the wall, focusing on how his shadow was projected there.

 _He is fourteen already_ , Nikandros had said about Laurent. Damianos did not want to think about what he’d say if he saw Auguste coddling Laurent like this.

“I’ve missed him,” Auguste said. “And as long as you stay here, there won’t be a problem.”

Damianos avoided stepping on the bread on the floor and picked one of the chairs up, carrying it closer to the bed as quietly as he could manage. He felt angry and did not know why, which only made him more upset. Was it Auguste he was irritated by, or himself?

“You should start by explaining what you even mean by that,” Damianos said as he sat down on the chair. He wanted to lean forward and put his head in his hands, willing the ache to disappear. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest and ignored the pain altogether. “You claim to have missed him and yet you’ve turned down every opportunity I’ve offered you to spend time with him on your own.”

Auguste’s fingers stopped stroking Laurent’s hair. “You are more perceptive than I remembered. Or was I too obvious?”

“You hurt him this morning,” Damianos said. It was with great effort that he managed not to raise his voice. “He obviously wanted you here.”

“I would have hurt him more by staying.”

Damianos took in a deep breath and held the air inside him, counting slowly. He’d thought by now he would be immune to Veretian riddles, but his headache and the alcohol coursing through his veins were not making him any more patient.

“He should not be seen alone with me,” Auguste continued, lowering his gaze. “I’m afraid the rumors have followed me all the way to Akielos.”

“The rumors?” Damianos asked. He kept trying not to think about Kastor, but it was becoming harder by the minute. “I am sure Laurent will understand if you explain to him the reasons behind the trials.”

Auguste smiled without humor. He looked older than he was and more tired than Damianos had ever seen him. Even in Vere, there had been a glow to him, something that made him interesting to look at. Now he might as well have been bedridden; he looked moments away from being sick.

“It’s not the trials that concern me,” Auguste said in that detached voice. “I lied to you this morning, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed. There were no trade routes to be discussed in the south.”

“I noticed,” Damianos agreed dryly.

“My uncle seems to have convinced half of Vere that I am unfit to rule.”

“And so you rode with an army to Chasteigne because you thought he was hiding there?”

Auguste shook his head in slow motion so as to not disturb Laurent’s sleep. “No. I went there because the riots were uncontrollable and I did not trust anyone else to handle them.”

Damianos frowned and uncrossed his arms. “Are your people hungry? If Vere is in a crisis then my father is obligated to help you. We could—”

“It’s not hunger that moves them, but disgust. And greed.” There was a pause in his speech as though he did not want to go on. One could see him struggling to get the words out through the tight line his mouth had become. “My uncle has always been especially close to some of the Lords in the south of Vere. It was a grave mistake on my part to assume their friendship had ceased when I put a price on his head .”

“I do not understand. Is it a coup you’re concerned about?”

“Partly.”

Damianos leaned back against the chair. “What sort of rumors has your uncle been feeding those Lords? It makes no sense for them to side with him so easily, knowing that if they were caught you’d have them killed.”

Auguste’s smile was a wry little thing. “He is promising them favors and places at court, amongst other things.”

“Still,” Damianos said. “You said people were disgusted. Has your uncle been claiming that you were born out of wedlock?”

It was the only thing Damianos could think of that would make sense. Veretians looked down on bastards—he’d noticed the looks they shot Kastor during their visit there—and by claiming Auguste was one, then Laurent would be required to take his place. Except that Laurent was yet to turn fourteen, and the laws were clear about such things. The whole mess would make their uncle the Regent of Vere until Laurent was of age.

“No,” Auguste said, eyes blazing with fury. The candlelight was reflected in them, making it look as though his pupils were on fire. “He has a thing for irony, you see.”

Damianos stared back, puzzled. What could be worse than being a bastard King?

“He claims I have corrupted the kingdom with my deviant ways and committed crimes against my own family.”

The air thickened around them. Damianos looked at Laurent for a minute—or rather, at the top of his head—and wondered what he would have said if he awoke to both Damianos and Auguste in his rooms. Nothing kind, Damianos imagined.

“Deviant ways?” Damianos asked at last. “I thought all Veretians were deviant.”

Auguste did not smile at the joke. “I find it hard to believe you have not heard of this already. If you know what I’m talking about, I’d rather you did not make me say it out loud.”

“I have heard…” He broke off. Auguste’s eyes on him were distracting. “You made Paschal face a trial.”

“Yes.”

Damianos bit his tongue. _Kastor told me…_ “And someone tried to poison you.”

Auguste tilted his head to the side, considering. “Paschal did not put hemlock in my wine.”

“I thought you didn’t drink wine,” Damianos said. He already knew it had not been Paschal. Kastor had told him as much.

“Occasionally, I do.”

Neither spoke for a moment. Damianos knew it’d be easy to steer the conversation in another direction, away from whatever was making Auguste look at him like that, but he also knew they had to speak of this. If not now, then tomorrow. There was no use in delaying the inevitable.

It was not as though Auguste was the only one with secrets. Damianos had not told him about Kastor and the nightshade yet. At this rate, he did not think he would.

“But those are not the rumors you are concerned about,” Damianos said. He did his best not to squirm in his chair. “You will have to tell me, I’m afraid.”

“He claims,” Auguste said in a flat, dead voice, “that I have lain with my brother.”

Damianos’s stomach clenched around the fifteen courses he had been forced to taste during the feast. _I will be sick in Laurent’s rooms_ , he thought feverishly, but the bile and vomit stayed away. So did his voice.

Auguste said, “Incest is considered aberrant in both of our kingdoms, Damianos. There are snakes everywhere, even here. I do not want my brother’s reputation to be tarnished any further by my presence, which is why I can not allow myself to be around him without any witnesses around.”

“Witnesses,” Damianos echoed.

Kastor’s taunts came back to him, tightening the knot his stomach had become. Kastor had known, he’d even told Laurent straight to his face. He had laughed, had implied—

“In case you are wondering,” Auguste said calmly, “it is not true.”

 _What Kastor said about my brother and I… it wasn’t true_. Damianos covered his mouth with his hand, willing his meal to stay inside his body. Through his fingers, he said, “I never thought it was.”

Auguste’s eyes dissected him. “Then you are a fool. How do you know I’m being honest?”

“Because Laurent trusts you,” Damianos said. “Because you are his family.”

“Those two things mean nothing. If that were the case, incest would not exist in the first place.”

“It shouldn’t.”

“But it does,” Auguste said, words cutting through whatever further explanation Damianos’s mind had been harboring. “It exists because people are too trusting and naive.”

“You are wrong,” Damianos replied, fighting the urge to touch the scar on his stomach. “It is not naive to trust your family.”

“I promise you, it is. Especially when it comes to mine.” There was a pause. “And yours too, I suppose. One would think that after what happened with Kastor, you’d be more reluctant to—”

Damianos was on his feet so fast the world around him turned blurry. He opened his mouth, ready to tell Auguste he had no right to talk about his brother, not when it was his uncle that had lured Kastor into one of his traps, but he stopped when he saw Laurent shifting.

“—uste?” Laurent slurred, eyes fluttering open.

“Yes,” Auguste replied instantly. “What is it?”

Laurent closed his eyes again. “Too loud,” he whined, face disappearing into his brother’s shoulder.

Auguste went back to stroking his hair, humming lowly when Laurent mumbled something again. Once he was sure Laurent had fallen back asleep, he glanced at Damianos. “Would you blow out the candle for me?”

Damianos clenched his jaw. “You can not spend the night here.”

“I won’t,” Auguste said. “But I know the light bothers him. He won’t wake up again when I move him if the room is dark enough.”

 _Good luck with that_ , Damianos thought as he made his way to the table and leaned over the candle. The flame wobbled as if scared of him. One swift sigh later it was gone. Damianos did not dare turn around to see if Auguste had managed to disentangle himself from Laurent’s limbs. Instead, he reached blindly for the pouch and tied it once more around his neck.

The plate with the sweet bread he’d brought Laurent was somewhere on the floor, but it was already too dark to search for it. Considering the state Laurent’s room was in—tray still on the floor with food scattered all around it—Damianos doubted leaving the dessert there would cause any harm.

Turning around as slowly as he could, Damianos found that he’d been wrong to distrust Auguste’s abilities. Auguste was standing by the bed, pulling the blanket up to Laurent’s chin with one hand while petting the top of his head with the other. He waited for a second, still and taut as a painting, and then leaned down to press a kiss to Laurent’s forehead.

Damianos had seen enough. He slipped out of the room and into the hall, refusing to put a name to what he was feeling, and slouched against the marble wall. It was cold enough to make Damianos shiver, and yet he did not pull away. It was a nice distraction.

Not a whole minute had gone by before Auguste emerged from Laurent’s room, closing the door softly behind him. If he’d looked worn out in the candlelight, he looked ten times worse standing under the light of the several torches that illuminated the hall. How had Damianos missed the circles under his eyes?

He leaned against the wall too, his elbow touching Damianos’s arm. “I apologize. I should not have spoken of Kastor. You are still mourning and I—”

“Help me understand something,” Damianos said. Voices were drifting up the stairs; the feast was most likely over by now. “Why did your uncle leave Arles in the first place?” He watched Auguste’s expression and then added, “Laurent said you did not consider him a traitor back then. He implied that whatever feud is between your uncle and you, it had nothing to do with the throne. If that is true, then why would you put a price on his head? What crime is worse than treason?”

Auguste licked his lips, took in a deep breath, and said nothing. The voices were getting closer and closer, and soon both of them would have to either part ways or find another spot to have this conversation in. Damianos made as if to go, but Auguste’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. His fingers were cold, like Laurent’s. The similarity made Damianos wonder if all Veretian suffered from poor blood circulation.

“Laurent is not objective when it comes to him,” Auguste said, words coming out of his mouth like pebbles. Damianos felt them piling up in his stomach, heavy and impossible to ignore. “My uncle is a traitor. He betrayed my trust.”

Damianos thought of all the times he had compared Auguste to his own father. How just and kind Auguste had always seemed in comparison to Theomedes. Now, looking at him, it was hard to spot the differences between the two.

“So you would hunt a man down and kill him only because he defied you?” Damianos asked, knowing it was irrational and probably more than a bit stupid.

He did not wish to defend that man, and yet he could not understand how Auguste would do something like this to his own family. Trust seemed like an excuse, something to hide behind. Perhaps their uncle had only started plotting against Auguste for the throne after leaving Arles. And if that was the case, Auguste sounded too much like Theomedes. _Kings are not born._ Was having his relatives executed Auguste’s idea of ruling?

“No,” Auguste said. “But I would kill anyone who hurt my brother.”

Three serving girls and Theomedes’s mistress stepped into the hall, their voices mingling together in a high-pitched sound that had Damianos wincing. His head felt like a ripe fruit, ready to split in two.

When he turned towards Auguste again, he found only his back. There were bronze-colored flowers embroidered all over his jacket, another detail about him Damianos had apparently overlooked. They glittered under the torches like gold.

“We will speak more tomorrow,” Auguste said. Was his voice rough or was Damianos’s headache making him hear things? It was hard to tell over the squeals of the women coming their way. “Good night, Damianos.”

“Was that King Auguste?” one of the serving girls whispered loudly.

Another one answered, “I do not know. Shouldn’t he be wearing blue?”

“Quiet down,” Theomedes’s mistress told them, her brown eyes landing on Damianos for the first time. Leda was her name. “Kings are not to be gossipped about.”

Hypermenestra would have laughed. She would have paid them well for their secrets and rumors. She would have winked at Damianos, maybe even smiled. She had Kastor’s mouth, and when she grinned her teeth were like a dozen white seashells.

Leda looked away and continued her march to Theomedes’s rooms as if Damianos was not there. The serving girls trailed after her, eyes on the floor.

*

“I tried shaking you,” Laurent said. The little brat. “It did not work. I feared for your life, Damianos. I really did.”

Damianos ran one hand through his wet hair, trying to tame it back so the damp curls would not fall over his eyes. “So dumping a cup of water over my head was the only solution you could come up with?”

Laurent hid the cup behind his back as if that could somehow make Damianos forget he was holding it. “There were others, but I assure you this was the most pleasant of them all.”

Damianos shivered. He was cold and wet and disgruntled, and having Laurent standing by his bed with no apologies in his mouth only made him hate being awake even more. What had he been dreaming of before Laurent woke him up? Was it the fire again?

Laurent watched him curiously as Damianos stretched on the bed and reached for the same chiton he had worn the day before. It was a bit rumpled and the hem was stained with wine, but it would do for now. Damianos had never wanted to take a bath so badly in his life. A real, warm bath, not this ice-cold freshening up Laurent had provided him with.

“What’s that on your stomach?” Laurent asked, already coming closer to get a better look.

Damianos slipped on the chiton and ignored him as best as he could. When his feet touched the marble floor he hissed, berating himself for forgetting that winter was not the season to walk around barefoot.

As he did the laces of his sandals, he said to Laurent, “What are you doing here?”

“I was tired of waiting for you,” Laurent said, the whine clear in his voice. _Too loud_ , he had complained the night before to Auguste. It was the closest to childish Damianos had heard him. “You drank too much wine last night.”

“Waiting for me?” Damianos asked. Had he made any promises before Auguste arrived in Laurent’s rooms? He could not remember. “What for?”

Laurent was wearing the same clothes as the day before. The vest looked even tighter today. Damianos wondered if he could even breathe in that thing but decided against asking at the last minute. He did not want to get lectured on Veretian fashion again.

When he rose from the bed, Laurent regarded him for a moment and asked, “Are you not eating breakfast this morning?”

“I suppose I am,” Damianos said, noticing the food trays on the table. He never ate breakfast here but in Laurent’s rooms. _Oh_. “Did you bring these here?”

Laurent jutted out his jaw. “If it displeases you—”

“I thought you’d be busy,” Damianos said. Bits and pieces of the night before were coming back to him, but he was still too disoriented to be a match for Laurent’s verbal games. “Why aren’t you having breakfast with your brother?”

“Auguste said he was too busy.”

Damianos paused. He thought he saw something in Laurent’s face, but it was gone too quickly for him to know what it was. “Busy doing what, exactly? Has my father already invited him to a meeting?”

“He did not tell me and I did not ask.” Laurent walked to the table and selected a fruit. In his hands, the fig looked enormous. “Catch.”

Damianos did not react in time. The fig hit him straight on the chess and fell to the floor with a dull thud, rolling under the bed when Damianos bent to pick it up. Laurent laughed, but the sound was neither pleasant nor warm. Damianos shivered again.

 _I’m not in the mood for this_ , he wanted to snap. He took one look at Laurent’s face and understood why he could not say those words. Laurent wanted him to. He’d been trying to get Damianos to snap since he opened his eyes—the water, the sly remarks, the fake laughter. That was Laurent begging to be told off.

“All right,” Damianos said instead. “Sit down and we’ll eat breakfast together.”

“But I—” Laurent frowned. “I woke you up with water, like a dog.”

“Yes.”

“And I’ve been annoying on purpose.”

Damianos considered this for a moment. In the meantime, he walked to the table and sat down on his least favorite chair. The floral one he left for Laurent. “Do not take offense in what I am about to tell you,” he said, “but you have a slight tendency to always be annoying.”

Laurent took his seat. “You have a slight tendency to eat like a beast.” He pointed at the white cloth napkins stacked neatly by one of the trays. “Try and behave yourself. I, for one, would like to have breakfast without being forced to endure your terrible table manners.”

Damianos ignored the jab. “How did you sleep?”

“Well,” Laurent said, far too stiffly to be true.

Had something happened after he and Auguste had left?

“You look well-rested,” Damianos said. If not for the tone of his voice, he would have believed Laurent instantly. There were no dark circles under his eyes, no slouch to his shoulders that indicated he was still worn out. He looked fine. “Did something—”

“I had a dream, that is all. Stop fretting.”

“A dream?”

“Yes, a dream. I take it you know what a dream is? You fall asleep and you see things that are not there.”

“What was it about?” Damianos asked. He reached for the knife and cut the fig he’d been holding in two halves, then passed one of them to Laurent.

“It is stupid to discuss one’s dreams,” Laurent answered, staring at the fig. “They do not mean anything.”

“Aesop would disagree with that. When I was younger than you he told me that a dream is a truth we do not dare tell ourselves while awake.”

“How poetic,” Laurent said dryly. “I know someone who’d agree.”

Damianos bit into the fig, seeds and juice dripping down his chin. “So, what was it about?” Then, because he did not want to sound too serious, he added, “Did you dream of me?”

“No.”

“Ah. Then it must not have been a very pleasant dream at all.”

“It was,” Laurent said, “because Auguste was in it.”

Damianos dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. He tried to catch Laurent’s eyes and failed, which was not surprising. The only times they had spoken like this—quietly, almost kindly—was in the dark. It made sense that Laurent did not want to look at him. Perhaps he had not intended to sound so tender.

“We’ll go riding today,” Damianos said. “All of us. You should ask Dion if he wants to join us too.”

Laurent pressed his lips into a thin, white line. “Fine.”

“You like horses,” Damianos said as if to remind him of his own interests. “You like riding and being with Dion. What are you upset about now?”

“I am not upset.”

Damianos decided not to point out his clenched fists or the sour expression on his face. Sometimes it was better to let Laurent think he was absolutely impossible to read. Granted, sometimes he was, but not right now. “Tell me and I’ll try to fix it.”

“You can’t.”

“Try me. Perhaps you’ll be surprised.”

With a great deal of effort, Laurent said, “I am not used to sharing.”

Damianos waited for him to continue, to explain what he meant. When Laurent didn’t he said, “Sharing what?”

“Auguste.”

“I see,” Damianos said, although he did not really see _it_. “But when my family and I went to Arles, you had to share his attention too. It’s only natural, Laurent.”

“But when you went to Arles he still made time for—” Laurent cut himself off. He stared at the fig with a frown on his face. “We played chess after dinner every night.”

“He’s only been back for a day. I am sure…” Damianos did not finish that sentence. He was not sure Auguste would go back to playing any game with Laurent, especially if it was only the two of them that were allowed to play. “He will come riding with us today. It’ll be fun.”

Laurent did not seem to think so. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You are,” Laurent said, pushing the fig away in disgust. Damianos had thought he liked them. “Why don’t you just say what we are both thinking? It is only fair for you to do so. I have always been honest with you.”

“Too honest, at times,” Damianos said. “Besides, I do not know what you are thinking. How can you be so sure our thoughts are aligned?”

“He only agreed to come riding when he knew you’d join us. He would not even have breakfast with me today.”

Damianos thought of Auguste’s face last night, the way he’d held Laurent and stroked his hair, and did not know what to say. The truth was not an option. He could not bear to tell Laurent about the rumors his uncle had spread without having another conversation with Auguste first. Laurent would ask questions—a million inquisitions—and Damianos held no answers. He’d ask about the trials, about Paschal, about why Damianos had not told Auguste that Kastor was the one who poisoned his horse. And what would Damianos say to all of that?

“I think your brother loves you,” Damianos said, pushing the bitterness he felt aside. It was easy to do so after having had so much practice in the last few days. “And you are simply misinterpreting the whole situation.”

Laurent looked up from the fruit and assessed him coldly. “I think you’re a fool.”

 _Then you are a fool_ , Auguste had said. Damianos smiled. Poor blood circulation and rudeness were definitely Veretian traits.

“I believe you have told me that… a thousand times before, perhaps? I’ve lost count already.”

Laurent huffed. “You do not know how to count.”

“All right,” Damianos said easily. He wiped his sticky fingers on the napkin and stood up. It seemed like he was condemned to never eat a full breakfast in Laurent’s presence. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“I’ll walk you to your lesson. You can ask Aesop whether or not I know how to count.”

Laurent, still sulking, got up as well. “What does he have to do with anything?”

“He’s the one who taught me,” Damianos said.

His fingers, although clean, felt itchy. Before he had time to convince himself that there were more noble ways to die, he reached out and ruffled Laurent’s hair lightly. The hair was warm as if Laurent had been standing under the sun all morning, and it was softer than it looked like. Under his ghost-like touch, Laurent froze.

Damianos paid him no mind. As soon as they got out of this room and mingled with other people, Laurent’s opportunity to maim him would be gone. “Come now or you’ll be late. Don’t forget to ask Dion to join us later.”

Laurent stared at him with a strange expression on his face. He took one step towards Damianos, towards the door, and then paused again. “Your chiton is dirty.”

“I know,” Damianos said without looking down at his clothes. “It’s only wine. I’ll bathe and change after my training.”

“And your hair is…”

Damianos ran his fingers through it. “Is it better now?”

“No,” Laurent said. There was no hesitation in his voice. “You look absolutely disgusting.”

“Good,” Damianos answered. “That’s what I was aiming for.”

They had made it halfway down the stairs before Laurent spoke again. The palace was unusually loud, slaves still rushing from one place to the other with the same energy they had displayed the day before, but Damianos was yet to see a Veretian guard or soldier. He wondered if they were planning to stay at the beach all day again.

“Are you going to follow my brother’s advice?”

Damianos almost missed a step. He did not miss the way Laurent smiled when he saw him lose his balance. “What advice?”

“He told you to bring Nikandros with you today,” Laurent said. “I only meant… You do not have to do as he says. ”

“Why would I care if Nikandros joins us? Dion finds him funny, and I know you are only pretending to hate him.”

Laurent skipped a step and waited for him at the bottom of the stairs. “Dion finds everyone funny.”

“He did not laugh yesterday when he met your brother,” Damianos pointed out before remembering why it was a bad idea to speak of Auguste again. Rapidly, he said, “You claim to hate sharing, and yet you gave Dion your cloak. I would hate to assume things, but it certainly looks like you have a _friend._ ”

Damianos relaxed as Laurent started defending himself against his accusations— _he was cold_ and _I had no use for my cloak_ and _I would do the same for you even though I do not like you at all_ and _maybe I wouldn’t, maybe I’d let you freeze to death_ —and only stopped walking when they had nearly reached the room Aesop had reserved for the lessons.

Laurent was still babbling, looking at him, and so he had not noticed that Aesop was waiting by the door, something he usually did when Laurent was late and that he was not alone.

Auguste was with him.

“—have to be cut off if you are out in the cold for too long,” Laurent was saying. “Are you even listening to me?”

Damianos was not, but he did not want to admit it. “Of course I am. Look,” he said hushedly, pointing at Aesop and Auguste. They had not noticed Laurent and him yet. “He probably came to see you.”

But Laurent did not smile. If anything, his expression darkened. “He’s probably looking for _you_.”

“He had no way of knowing I’d walk you here today.”

Flushing, Laurent said, “You do it every morning.”

“Yes,” Damianos agreed, “but he had no way of knowing that either.”

Damianos resumed his walk but stopped again after a few steps when he noticed Laurent had not moved. Laurent was watching Auguste, face scrunched up in concentration, and did not notice when Damianos touched his shoulder.

“All right?”

Laurent looked at him, blinking rapidly. He then tilted his head to stare at Damianos’s hand on his shoulder. “You did not wash your hands after eating breakfast.”

Damianos noticed that Laurent was not pulling away. He said, “Well, I did not have to. I used one of the napkins you gave me.” He showed Laurent his other hand, wriggling his fingers. “See? Clean.”

Still stalling for time, Laurent pretended to examine it. “There are fig seeds stuck to it.”

“There aren’t.” Damianos pushed his hand closer to Laurent’s face. “Look again.”

“Laurent,” Aesop called. When Damianos turned to look at him, he saw he was trying to bite back a smile. “Would you like us to postpone today’s lesson?”

“No,” Laurent said, shooting a nasty look at Damianos. He walked up to them without turning to see if Damianos had followed. “I’m sorry for being late again. Damianos was—”

“—defending himself,” Damianos finished for him.

Auguste only had eyes for Laurent. He smiled, crouching down a bit so they were on eye-level. “It is a sure sign of madness to speak of oneself in the third person.”

“Damianos is not mad,” Laurent said. “He is only simple-minded.”

Aesop was the first one to laugh. Even after all these years, he still sounded the same. Had he laughed like this, openly and honestly, when Kastor made cruel jokes about the wards and stable boys during lessons? Had all his smiles been reserved for Damianos, just like Theomedes’s had always been?

“Child,” he said, still cackling, “you wound me terribly. If he is simple-minded, it must be because of me. Teachers are often at fault for their students’ shortcomings.”

Laurent’s eyes sparkled with malice. “Can I ask you something?”

At the same time, Auguste and Damianos said, “Laurent.”

“Of course.” Aesop touched his shoulder, herding him away from Damianos. “Is it about those maps I told you about the other day? Cartography is the purest form of art, in my opinion.”

Damianos wanted to laugh. Aesop always said that about anything. _Drinking wine is the purest form of art_ and _Poetry, oh, yes, that is the purest form of art_. Kastor had called him an idiot because of the last one.

“I was wondering,” Laurent said, “if Damianos ever learned how to count?”

Aesop blinked. “He did. He was the best at counting coins and playing games with numbers.”

“ _Was_?” Damianos asked. “I’d like to think I still am.”

Laurent ignored him. He let himself be pulled into the room by Aesop, who was still trying not to laugh. “About those maps…”

The door closed and Auguste did not move. He was staring at it as if he could still watch Laurent through it. There was laughter inside already—Dion’s, Damianos recognized it—and outside there was only the sound of their breathing and the distant commanding of the slaves. Damianos wiped his hands on the front of his chiton and waited. A fig seed stubbornly stuck to the hem.

“You got him a tutor,” Auguste said after an age of silence.

“Yes. He wanted Dion to learn how to read.”

“And write.”

Damianos looked over Auguste’s shoulder where the hall ended and gave way to the training arena. “And write,” he agreed. His thoughts were already scattering, flying away from him like birds. He wanted to speak to Nikandros. “Would you like to join my training?”

Auguste’s smile was still tired and a little lopsided, but his eyes seemed brighter than before. “We should spar.”

“We should wrestle,” Damianos said. He saw the protest blooming in Auguste’s face, and said, “We’ll speak again tonight. After we’ve gone riding and everyone has gone to sleep.” Then, mustering all the courage he could, he said, “There are things you need to know.”

“Then we will speak of them,” Auguste said. “Tonight.”

To Damianos, it sounded both like a promise and a threat.

*

Nikandros was in the armory, polishing a black bow with practiced ease. In his hands, it looked ridiculously small, the sort of thing one would gift a child for training. Damianos did not need to ask who it belonged to; Laurent would like it, even if he never said so out loud.

“I thought you did not wish to train today,” Nikandros said when he noticed him lingering by the door. He put the bow down on the only wooden table in the cramped room. “It was late and I assumed—”

Damianos held his hand up. “I’m not here to reprimand you. I’m here to…” Here he paused, hesitant. He did not want this to sound like an order. “Would you like to go riding with me today?”

Laurent had been wrong earlier. It was not that Damianos did not want Nikandros to join them, it was the complete opposite. He missed their easy friendship, the way Nikandros always knew what to say and when to say it. He missed dragging Nikandros along to play pranks on Kastor.

He missed Kastor.

Nikandros nodded, once, twice, three times. “Of course.”

“King Auguste will come too,” Damianos said, trying to warn him. “And Laurent.”

“Oh.”

“I thought…” Damianos broke off yet again and hated himself for it. This was the man he had grown up with, the one who’d sat next to him in every meeting, in every feast. When and why had hesitancy become a buffer between them? Why had Damianos allowed this to go on for so long? “I thought we could show them the eastern caves.”

Nikandros’s voice remained pleasant, but there was something hopeful in it too. “What about the southern ones?”

“They are beautiful,” Damianos conceded. “And I’m sure Laurent would like them more.”

“Then why…?”

Damianos walked the distance that separated them. He thought of an embrace, like the one Auguste had offered him the day before, but found he was still too raw, too skin-less. He felt that if he held Nikandros like that, he’d come apart at the seams, secrets he was not allowed to speak spilling out of him like blood. No. There were things that could not be said, not in broad daylight, not to people like Nikandros.

Instead, he put his hands over Nikandros’s shoulders. He thought of Kastor again and pretended like he hadn’t. _I will allow myself this_ , he thought, _I do not wish to be punished anymore._

“Those are ours,” Damianos said. “I could not visit them with anyone else but you.”

Nikandros hands were calloused and rough on Damianos’s elbows. He nodded again and said, “Of course.”

And then, because there was nothing else he could say, nothing else that felt right enough, Damianos opened his mouth and hoped Nikandros understood. “I never went there with him.” A pause, his heart drumming inside his own skull. “I am glad I did not.”

Nikandros’s fingers curled tighter around his elbows. Had he understood, at all, what Damianos had meant to say?

“I am glad too.”

*

Auguste stood over him, panting, the heel of his boot pressed against Damianos’s ribs. The weight was not all there and Damianos’s bones appreciated it. Had Auguste wanted to, he could have snapped a rib or two by bringing his foot down harder. When Damianos swallowed, the cold steel of Auguste’s blade against his neck made him almost choke.

“Again?” Auguste asked him, retrieving his sword and offering him a hand instead.

Damianos sat up. He was aware of all the eyes on him, waiting for him to say something, to defy the King of Vere to another duel and take him down. Kastor certainly would have.

He supposed he should have felt shame, perhaps even anger, but those feelings eluded him. He took Auguste’s hand and marveled at how warm it was. It had been cold as ice the night before.

“No,” Damianos said, remembering the way Auguste had let him pick up his sword at Marlas. It had cost him a victory, even if it was a mock one. “You have beaten me fairly.”

Auguste laughed and helped him to his feet.

*

The caves were damper and colder than Damianos remembered them. In summer, flowers bloomed on the walls and birds made their nests inside. Now that it was winter, rainwater had frozen into funny shapes that Laurent and Dion spent hours looking at.

Auguste held Laurent’s hand to keep him from slipping, and when the brat complained about being cold Auguste gave him his jacket. Dion and Nikandros watched them, sometimes smiling and other times rolling their eyes.

Damianos closed his eyes and reminded himself more than once that this was a place Kastor had never been in.

In here, his brother did not exist.

*

The feast that night was only twelve courses long. Damianos was glad; his back felt like it was on fire from all the riding he had done during the day. The caves were lovely, but climbing and walking on all those rocks had left his legs and spine stiffer than Damianos would have liked to admit.

Laurent kicked him under the table for the third time. Next to him, Dion was nibbling hesitantly at some bread as he looked around in awe, and he seemed not to have noticed Laurent’s increasingly foul mood. Or perhaps he had and was ignoring it. Either way, he smiled when Damianos’s eyes met his.

“What is it?” Damianos asked Laurent. He noticed that he had not touched his fish. “And _stop_ kicking me. You have my full attention.”

Theomedes was arguing with a the Kyros of Mellos, forcing Auguste to participate in the conversation. Auguste’s Akielon was not as good as Laurent’s, and so he struggled to keep up sometimes. He smiled and nodded politely, hiding behind his cup of water when he did not understand a question.

Damianos did his best to block out his father’s words— _Mellos and Delpha should have more than a few hundred men to defend the border_ —and focused on Laurent’s face in front of him instead. His hair was still wild from not combing it after today’s ride, but his face was no longer flushed. There was no trace of the happiness Damianos had seen in him earlier.

“You need to tell him,” Laurent said, uncaring if anyone at the table heard him.

“Tell who what?” Dion asked him in a whisper. He had put down the bread and was staring at Laurent’s profile intently.

 _Tell Auguste about Kastor_ , Damianos almost said. It was with great effort that he did not. “I was going to do it after dinner. Or would you rather I stood up now and told everyone?”

“I want to be there,” Laurent said, “when you tell him.”

That was not what Laurent wanted. Damianos admired his composure, the way he had been forcing his voice to sound nonchalant, but he did not appreciate being played. What Laurent wanted was to sit down with Auguste and show him he was no longer a child, that he knew things. Important things. He wanted to be included.

“We’ll see,” Damianos said, moving his legs away from Laurent’s kicking range. “Eat your food first.”

Laurent turned to face Dion. “I hate fish,” he declared. “I bet it tastes better raw.”

“It doesn’t,” Dion answered. He did not seem too concerned about contradicting Laurent, so Damianos did not let himself worry about it. “This is the best fish _I_ have ever eaten.”

“It’s too salty.”

Dion frowned. “It comes from the sea.”

“It has tiny bones,” Laurent said, fork pulling at the meat to show what hid inside. He beckoned Dion to come closer. “Look, under the fin.”

“All fish have bones.”

Damianos laughed, which earned him a glance from his father. “Have you never eaten fish, Laurent?”

“Of course I have,” Laurent snapped at him. His foot grazed Damianos’s knee. A warning. “But this one is tiny.”

“So?” Dion asked him.

“It was a baby,” Laurent said dramatically. “I can not eat a baby fish.”

Dion grabbed his fork and used it to stab Laurent’s fish. He transferred it to his own plate and began eating it. “It tastes like fish,” he commented after three mouthfuls.

Damianos looked at Laurent, studying his features. He looked pleased. Damianos could not help but wonder if Laurent hadn’t truly wanted to eat the fish or if he’d orchestrated the whole thing so Dion got an extra ration.

Once dinner was drawing to a close and Auguste had rejected a dozen pleasure slaves—Damianos had counted each and every one that came up to him—there was no excuse that could delay their talk any longer. Knowing what Auguste’s answer would be to Laurent wanting to participate in the discussion, Damianos decided it would be best to step in and offer Laurent something else to focus on for the night.

“Dion,” Damianos said as the slaves took their empty plates away. “You should stay the night here.”

Laurent did not give the boy time to reply. In very sharp Veretian, he said, “He’s not a pet.”

“I—Not with me,” Damianos rushed to say. He was glad Auguste was too busy trying to understand the difference between _border patrol_ and _military stronghold._ “I meant with you. Aesop told me the stars would shift tonight.”

“Stars do not shift,” Laurent said. “And Dion’s family is waiting for him.”

“Stars?” Dion asked. He flinched when a slave reached out from behind him to pick up his plate. Turning to Laurent, he said, “If Aesop said so…”

Laurent was very still, eyes fixed on Damianos. When he spoke, Damianos thought he was the one Laurent was addressing. “Do you _want_ to stay the night?”

Dion smiled even though Laurent was not looking at him. “If you want me to,” he said, shrugging. Leaning closer, he pressed his mouth to Laurent’s ear. He was a terrible whisperer. “I think it will be fun.”

“Fun,” Laurent echoed, as if the word was completely foreign to him.

Damianos lifted his cup for an imaginary toast. “To fun.”

*

Auguste’s rooms had been decorated by Leda the morning of his arrival. There was gold and red everywhere one chose to look, and Damianos quickly learned why Auguste did not seem to like spending his time in them. It had been a spacious place once, but there was so much furniture it made even walking an awkward task.

There was a balcony, similar to the one in Damianos’s rooms, and standing the middle of it was Auguste. He was leaning against the stone banister, his back to the door. Damianos watched him for a long moment, admiring the length of his legs and the shine of his hair. It was the brightest thing in the room, even brighter than the golden ornaments and knick-knacks Leda had selected.

“Will the stars truly shift tonight or was that a white lie you told my brother?” Auguste asked when he heard Damianos approaching the balcony.

Damianos followed his gaze and found the sea. The waves were quiet, crawling almost lazily to the shore, and the moon shone above them like a pearl. It was easy to see why Auguste was so enthralled by the view.

“I’d rather not say.”

“Ah,” Auguste said. “The words of a guilty man.”

The front of Auguste’s shirt was undone. It was the most skin Damianos had ever seen him show and it was so white it put the moon to shame. White except for the patch of skin that was an angry pink color, textured where the rest of Auguste was not. Barely the size of a clenched fist, the scar seemed to Damianos a strange wine stain.

Damianos decided it was safer to keep his eyes on the moon.

“My brother poisoned your horse,” he said. No introduction, no apologies. “He fed it deadly nightshade berries. A handful, he told me.”

Auguste shifted beside him. “But it was not his idea, was it?”

Damianos’s plucked the letter from one of the folds of his chiton and handed it to Auguste wordlessly. He was offended by Auguste’s lack of surprise at the revelation and angry at himself for not expecting it in the first place. Was he the only one who had been blind to Kastor’s actions?

“ _Be my ally and I will be yours_ ,” Auguste read. He did not sound angry. “When did Kastor receive this letter?”

“During our visit to Vere.”

“Vere,” Auguste repeated dully. “Sometimes I wonder what it would look like if someone set it on fire.”

Damianos thought of his dreams. The village, the smoke, the bloodied sword. “Laurent says Aimeric gave it to Kastor.”

“And you don’t believe him.”

“There are things Laurent can’t explain,” Damianos said, turning his face to watch Auguste again. In his hands, the note might as well have been a love letter. He held it so delicately Damianos felt envious of his grace. “Why would Aimeric do such a thing? He is Laurent’s age and has nothing to gain from this.”

Auguste did not look up from the note. “One year,” he said quietly. “He is one year younger than Laurent.”

“I think it could have been anyone, regardless of what Laurent thinks. He is blinded by his dislike for the boy.” Damianos paused, waiting for Auguste’s input. There was none. “Besides, what sort of man would trust a child to keep his secrets? Aimeric knows how to read, according to your brother. He’s dangerous if kept alive.”

“Children love easily,” Auguste said. “They think he loves them. It has the outward semblance of love.”

“Who?”

“My uncle,” Auguste said. He pushed the note back into Damianos’s hand. His fingers were cold and warm at the same time, clammy. “It was Aimeric.”

“But I just said—”

“He confessed to it.”

Damianos took a shaky step back, holding onto the banister with all his strength. For once, he was glad to not have drunk wine during dinner. “You _knew_.”

“Yes. As I’ve said, Aimeric confessed a few weeks after you had all come to Akielos.”

The trials. “You put a child on trial?”

Auguste shook his head. “I put his father on trial and then asked Aimeric in private if there was something he wanted to tell me.”

“You knew Kastor had done it when you—” _hugged me_. Damianos felt anger rise in him, untamable. “You said you were sorry.”

“I did,” Auguste said, “and I was sorry. There was no mockery in my words, Damianos. I am sorry your brother is dead. I believe things would not have turned out this way if my uncle had not sought him out.”

“The physician, Aimeric’s father… How many men have you locked in a cell since your brother left?”

Auguste gave him a long look. The faintest of blonde stubbles decorated his face. “None of them are in a cell. Paschal, I allowed to stay at the palace and do as he pleases.”

“But you got yourself a new physician,” Damianos said bitterly. “You’re only keeping Paschal there because you don’t trust him as far as you can throw him.”

“Is that a crime?”

Damianos ignored him. “And Aimeric’s father? What did you do with him?”

“I had him beheaded,” Auguste said calmly. Like they were still talking about the stars. “Then, I put his head on a spike for everyone to see.”

“Why?”

Auguste glanced at the moon. “He was a traitor.”

“According to you, so was Aimeric,” Damianos said without stopping to think or select his words more carefully. “Why not have him beheaded as well?”

“I don’t kill boys, Damianos.”

Damianos’s skin felt too hot, too tight. He wanted to be away from Auguste, perhaps to never see him again, and the knowledge that it could not be so made him angrier. For the last two days, he had been a fool in his own home, thinking he had this man’s trust when it was obvious he didn’t. Was this how Laurent felt all the time? If so, it was easy to see why he oscillated so wildly between love and hate for his brother.

“No,” Damianos said. “You just fuck them.”

But Auguste did not rise to the bait. Like Laurent, he kept perfectly still and continued to stare at Damianos with a blank expression on his face. “Is that what you think?”

“You talk in circles and explain nothing, yet you expect me to trust you? You claim Aimeric confessed, but it could be a lie.”

“It is not.”

“Then prove it,” Damianos said. He regretted not asking for a rematch earlier.

Auguste blinked at him. “How?”

“Tell me, without riddles, what this is really about.”

“It’s about the throne,” Auguste said slowly as if afraid Damianos was too stupid to comprehend him. “What else could it be about? My uncle wants to rule Vere. In order to do so, he makes promises he can not keep, ruins families and spreads rumors. That’s what this is all about.”

“What did he promise Aimeric? A new toy?”

Auguste clenched and unclenched his fists over the banister. “He promised Guion, Aimeric’s father, a place as his right-hand man once he had won the coup against me.”

“That is not what I asked.”

“Aimeric was only doing as he was told.”

Damianos pushed again, feeling the truth was just beneath the surface, begging for release. “By his father?”

“Yes,” Auguste said. “In a way.”

“I asked you to speak without riddles.”

Auguste rubbed at his eyes. It was late, but Damianos had never felt less tired. He wanted this moment to last until he had all the answers until he understood the game he had been forced to play. In the stretched-out moment that followed, Damianos thought of nothing but Kastor’s contempt for Veretians. At that moment, Damianos hated them too.

“I can not say any more. A promise binds me to silence.”

“How convenient,” Damianos said bitterly. “You must be proud, then. You have kept your promise to Aimeric and left me in the dark once more.”

Auguste took a deep breath. It was a while before he let it out. “I promised Laurent no one would know of this and I stand by what I said. If that costs me your trust, I will have to live without it.”

They both went back to admiring the moon for a while. The truth was swelling between them, taking shape, and Damianos had never learned how to ignore it when it came calling for him. He was not Veretian and valued honesty over everything else. If he could not have that, then what was the point?

“You should leave,” Damianos said into the night. “Once your men have rested and indulged in some of the pleasures Akielos has to offer, you should ride back to Arles and not return again.”

It was a stupid thing to say, Damianos knew. Auguste was a king and he was a prince. No matter how straight-backed Damianos stood, how honestly he spoke, Auguste would always stand taller than him. Auguste did not have to listen to anyone but himself. Such were the ways of kings.

“And Laurent?” Auguste asked. “Do you wish to see him gone as well?”

Instead of answering the question, Damianos said, “If it weren’t for you and your family, Kastor would be alive.”

“Yes,” Auguste said. “But you wouldn’t be.”

“Laurent can’t hide here forever.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?” Damianos snapped. “You have no real plan when it comes to him. If you can’t be seen alone with him, what are your options? Will you drag him back to Arles and ignore him for years to come?”

Auguste did not answer.

“Even if you ignored the rumors,” Damianos went on, “what happens next time some fool poisons your horse? What if it’s your brother and not his guard that ends up under it?”

“That is enough,” Auguste said. His tone made Damianos swallow. “Do you think I don’t ask myself the same questions, day in and day out? Do you have any idea what it has been like for me, to hand him over to you like—like—” He stopped talking, mouth closing shut with a clank. “He is not safe anywhere, not even here, and I can’t protect him with so many miles between us.”

“I’ll convince my father to lend you troops so you can weed out your uncle’s influence from the south.”

“That will only make them hate me more. Akielons invading Vere? They’ll riot even harder.”

 _Just be gone_ , Damianos wanted to tell him. _Take your problems with you_. It was what Kastor would have said.

“Then what do you suggest?”

Auguste pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes. “I ride back to Arles with Laurent and spend every waking moment hunting my uncle down. He’ll fall eventually.”

“That could take months, if not years. All the while your people grow more restless, thinking you—” Damianos could not say the words. The idea disgusted him too much. He could see why Veretians found it repulsive. “Perhaps he should stay here.”

Auguste lowered his hands. His jaw was clenched, the muscles of his throat pulled tightly. “No. By now, everyone knows he’s here. It won’t be long until my uncle tries something.”

“If you think I’d let your uncle or his men—”

“My friend,” Auguste said. How could he still call Damianos that after what they’d said to each other? After what Damianos had spat at him? “I do not doubt you, but my brother.”

 _My uncle loves me_ , Laurent had said. He’d sounded sure, resilient. He’d sounded vulnerable. The sort of tender wolves would love to sink their teeth in.

“I see no solution,” Damianos said.

“That’s because there isn’t one. In every picture my mind paints, someone dies.” Auguste’s breathing was brittle like he could not control it very well. “If he kills me, he might as well kill Laurent. In a few years, my uncle will have no use for him and he’ll—” Another shallow breath. “Being the Regent will only last for so long.”

“Do you really have no clue where he is hiding?”

“No,” Auguste said. Then, “Yes.” Then, “I don’t know.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Lys. That’s where I think he is.”

Hadn’t their argument over breakfast the day before been about Lys? “If you are putting your faith in Laurent’s words, then you should stop. I’ve asked him already if he knew where your uncle was.”

“And he said no.”

“And he said no,” Damianos agreed. “Still, it wouldn’t hurt to look there.”

Auguste ran a hand through his hair. It was curlier than Laurent’s and the damp weather of Ios was not helping. Sea breeze could turn the softest hair stiff in a matter of hours.

“He is happy here,” Auguste said. The words seemed to bring him pain, for his face twisted. “He has friends and people who care for him. Tell me how to take that away from him because I do not know how.”

Damianos wanted to talk about military strategies. He was good at that, at circling the enemy and destroying it. He’d killed two men already and was in charge of a command even though there was no war. Swords, daggers, even arrows he could understand. In Akielos, when one wanted a man dead one simply killed him. In Vere, it was rude to slaughter a man without months of foreplay. Damianos could not understand it.

“People care about him in Vere too,” Damianos said awkwardly. “There’s Jord and Lazar. And you.”

Auguste’s mouth thinned.

“I did not mean what I said earlier.”

“Which part?”

Damianos bristled. “Most parts. He should stay here. I know it’s not ideal, but I do not have as many responsibilities as you. I could watch him better.”

“That will change soon,” Auguste said. “Your father told me he wants to send you to Vask for a season. Rekindling old alliances, he called it.” There was laughter there, a cruel jab at Theomedes’s ideas of ruling. Damianos did not call him out on it. “It is kind of you to offer, but Laurent belongs in Vere. Even if you were to stay here with him, even if I left Lazar behind as his personal guard… This is not where he should grow up.”

In a way, Damianos was not surprised. _Perhaps Laurent will agree to return with me to Arles by the end of my stay there_ , Auguste had written to him. Damianos should have known better, should have read between the lines. When it came to kings, there were no perhaps or maybes. Their word was the law.

“It is decided then,” Damianos said. The cold was lapping at him, trying to get under his chiton, under his skin. “You will take him with you when you are done here.”

“Yes.”

“When will you leave?”

Running his hand over the banister, Auguste said, “By the end of next week.”

Ten days, then. Damianos supposed it could be worse. He knew, from experience, that it could _always_ be worse.

“You should take the letter with you,” Damianos told him. “It’s proof of your uncle’s treason. Even if it’s not signed, anyone who knows what his handwriting looks like can identify it during a trial.”

“Has Laurent read it?”

“He’s read bits of it,” Damianos said. “Mostly the beginning.”

Auguste turned away from the ocean. “I need a drink. Would you like some wine?”

Damianos thought of staying here with Auguste, sharing a bottle of wine with him, talking about everything and nothing at the same time. He had never felt more tired than he did now just thinking about those things. In his mind, he saw himself sneaking into Laurent’s rooms to discuss this, to warn him that he only had ten days left in Akielos. And then he remembered that Dion was staying with Laurent.

“No. I’d rather go.”

Auguste opened his mouth, almost said something, but Damianos could not stomach listening to him anymore. He did not know where this anger was coming from, if it was justified or not, but it demanded to be felt. Not wanting to ruin the tattered friendship that remained between them, he made his escape.

Once in the hall, Damianos turned left. Nikandros’s rooms were only six doors away.

*

For five days, Damianos pretended like nothing was happening.

He’d have breakfast with Laurent early in the mornings and sometimes Auguste would join them, he too pretending like nothing was wrong in front of Laurent. He would train harder than ever before until Nikandros forced him to stop. He would eat lunch with his father, attend a meeting, make sure he talked to his men, and got to know them. He would join Laurent and Auguste for an afternoon ride, sometimes with Dion, sometimes with Nikandros. Sometimes by himself.

He watched Laurent most of the time and came to the same conclusion Auguste had: he was happy here. If not absolutely content—this was Laurent, after all—he was busy and energized. He practiced archery and once asked Nikandros to hold an apple over his head so he could test his aim. He went down to the beach and came back with weird stories about the other boys’ families. If he was still angry with his brother, he hid it perfectly.

On the morning of the sixth day, he woke Damianos up by pouring a cup of icy water over his head.

“Auguste said we’re leaving.”

Damianos used the sheets to wipe his face clean and dry himself off. “What? Already?”

“Not today,” Laurent hissed. Dressed in green, he looked like a snake. “In four days.”

Unable to put up any sort of performance, Damianos kept quiet. Laurent would know if he lied.

“It’s not like I care,” Laurent went on saying. _Ah,_ Damianos thought. It was going to be one of those monologues where Laurent pretended he had no heart. “I hate it here. It’s humid and damp and you eat baby fish. And your clothes are stupid. And you’re stupid.”

“Yes,” Damianos said slowly.

“And you knew about it. Auguste told me you’ve known for days.” Laurent tossed the cup away, making Damianos flinch at the sound of silver meeting stone. “And you will send Aesop away when I’m gone and Dion won’t learn anything anymore. And he doesn’t really know how to spell words yet, except for his name, which is stupid. And have I mentioned how stupid you are?”

“I think you have.”

Laurent started pacing around the bed. He kicked the cup away and watched it roll towards the wall. “You know things I don’t because Auguste likes you more, and isn’t that completely idiotic? He trusts a barbarian more than he trusts me. And your advice is terrible. And he’ll listen to it, of course he will, because he’s an idiot. And you never explain anything to me. And—and—”

“All right,” Damianos said, reaching out to grab Laurent’s arm and keep him still. All this pacing was making Damianos’s head spin. “You need to calm down.”

Laurent brought his fist down on Damianos’s arm to free himself. “I am calm, you infernal imbecile,” he said, on the verge of shrieking. “I am the calm—”

“It was not my place to tell you what I knew,” Damianos said. “If you don’t want me to, I won’t send Aesop away. I’m sure I’ll be able to find some excuse to appease my father. And your brother does not tell you things because you are thirteen years old. It’s not about trust, Laurent, it’s about your age.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“If you think so,” Damianos said, “then I respect your opinion. Here’s _my_ opinion: you’re an annoying, blabbering dwarf.”

Laurent dug his nails hard into the skin of Damianos’s forearm. “I’m still smarter than you. I’ll be fourteen in two months. You said—you said in Akielos boys are men at thirteen.”

“I did, but that does not make a child an expert in politics.”

“I’m better at politics than you’ll ever be,” Laurent said, still scratching at Damianos’s arm. “Let go.”

“You need to calm down.”

“I am calm,” Laurent insisted, not sounding calm at all. “I’m sure you’re glad anyway.”

“Glad?”

“You find me annoying. You must be glad to be rid of me.” Laurent did not give Damianos time to reply. “And you’ll have a child soon, so you’ll be busy. And you—”

Damianos let go of him. For the first time in his life, he contemplated striking Laurent across the face. “You need to stop,” he said. “Is it so hard to admit that you like it here? If you don’t wish to go back to Arles, just talk to your brother about it. Do not drag me into this.”

Laurent’s face was red. He had been speaking without a pause for some time and was breathing heavily too. “He won’t listen to me.”

 _So you want me to convince him_ , Damianos thought. Laurent had come here to do what, exactly? Something told Damianos not even Laurent knew what he wanted anymore.

“Sometimes,” Damianos found himself saying, “people have to do things they do not want to do, Laurent. Even Princes. Your brother wants what is best for you.”

“So you agree with him,” Laurent said, and this time he was calm. He was stoic. “You think I should go.”

Damianos reached out for Laurent’s hands, half of him convinced that Laurent would pull away. His fingers were cold, most likely from holding onto the cup, but the tips were warm. It was a strange combination, as though the blood had concentrated only under his nails. Damianos gave them a squeeze tight enough to make Laurent squirm.

“You came here to help me,” Damianos said as softly as he could. “You wanted me to gain my brother’s trust and make sure the alliance between our kingdoms did not fail. Now my brother is dead and the peace treaty won’t be broken.”

 _My brother is dead_.

“Am I being dismissed, then? How kind of you.”

“I’ll miss you,” Damianos said, not caring if it made Laurent angry or if it earned him another myriad of insults. “And I know Dion will miss you too. Even Nikandros will be sad to see you go.”

“Stop.”

“He won’t say it to you,” Damianos continued, “because he’s stubborn and proud like you are. Except he’s taller, so his pride is better distributed. It doesn’t cloud his judgment as much.”

“That’s—stop.”

“But you still have four days left with us. Don’t let your anger make you do things you’ll regret later on, Laurent. You regretted writing that letter to Auguste and tearing apart your book. Don’t make the same mistake twice.”

Weakly, Laurent said, “You’re a mistake.”

Damianos tugged at his hands, pulling him closer like he’d seen Auguste do before, and rested his chin on Laurent’s head. “You can come back whenever you want to,” he said, even though he knew it was not true. Auguste would not let Laurent out of his sight again until he knew where their uncle was. “And I’ll help Dion write to you. How does that sound?”

Laurent struggled pathetically against him, all for show. His face was very warm where it was pressed against Damianos’s chest. “Your spelling—is horrible.”

“Only in Veretian,” Damianos said. After a second, he asked, “All right?”

“No,” Laurent answered, pulling away. “You’re dripping all over me.”

Damianos shook his head, making his curls let go of all the water they had been holding. He could hear Laurent’s thoughts inside his head as though they were his own. _You look like a dog._

“Have you had breakfast already? I’ll ask the cooks to make you something special.”

Laurent touched his arm. There were three angry-red scratches marring it. Instead of apologizing, he said, “Special how?”

“Sweet,” Damianos said without hesitation. “Something especially sweet.”

*

They went to the caves again. Even when Auguste was busy, Damianos took Dion and Laurent anywhere they asked. He rode with them around the palace and stood by when Nikandros grudgingly gifted Laurent the bow he’d been working on for days. He laughed when Nikandros refused to hold the apple over his head at Laurent’s command.

He missed Kastor more and more each day, but also less. Damianos suspected the wound would always be there, like the scar on Auguste’s chest, and it would never truly heal. He avoided Jokaste at all costs, busying himself with meetings, and making sure Laurent’s last days in Akielos were pleasant. He made sure the cooks did not serve fish again for dinner.

That last night, he slipped into Laurent’s rooms when he knew no one would see him. He was not surprised to find Laurent in bed, reading. It had been over a month since Kastor’s execution, but as he took the blanket and pillow Laurent was offering him, Damianos felt as though no time had passed at all. It was the same night, all over again. In the morning, someone he cared about would be gone.

Laurent blew out the candle. Then, something heavy fell on Damianos’s chest, knocking the breath out of him. In the dark, his mind struggled to understand what it was as his fingers ran along the edges.

“You can keep that,” Laurent said. It was the first time Damianos had ever heard him speak so hesitantly. In the dark, he was always confident and relaxed. “I have other books at home. You should practice your Veretian.”

 _I speak Veretian better than you speak Akielon_. “What is it about?”

“If I tell you, you won’t read it.”

Damianos put his hand on the edge of the mattress. A second passed and then another. Laurent’s hand closed around his thumb.

“I promise I’ll read it,” Damianos said. He liked this room. He’d miss watching the ceiling while Laurent read. It was a nice ceiling. “Tell me about it.”

Laurent did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! It has been an intense week for me so I apologize for taking so long to post this chapter. This is like, 20k words? It's insane how long this chapter was.  
> \- [CHECK OUT THIS BEAUTIFUL ART SOPHIA DID FOR THIS FIC! Look at Smaurent's happy face and cry with me.](https://mossygreen-art.tumblr.com/post/621378187643977728/i-mightve-forgotten-how-to-draw-but-ill-never)  
> \- There a billion quotes from the books in this chapter but I literally have no energy to quote them here so I'll edit this note later to add a disclaimer for each one. I mean, I'm sure you all saw them? (I was watching the freaking road)  
> \- Next chapter will be up on Friday. I know I used to update every three days but the chapters are so long now that I can't keep up. AND next chapter you're all in for a surprise, so yeah. Don't abandon me just because it takes me so long to write this.  
> I love you all and stay safe! Thank you for wishing me good luck!


	15. Thirteen

**Thirteen**

The morning of Laurent’s eighteenth birthday dawned bright and warm. The intoxicating smell of almond-flavored darioles and fruit custards was sneaking its way out of the kitchens before the sun had even had the opportunity to tinge the sky orange. The air felt heavy with sugar and butter, and one could taste the desserts just by taking in a deep breath through the mouth.

Laurent sat on his bed trying not to gag.

“One would think that you dislike sweet treats,” Jord said, his back still turned to Laurent, “based on the faces you’re making.”

“You are not looking at my face.”

“I would be if you allowed me to turn around.”

Laurent made a clicking sound with his tongue. “I am not fully dressed yet,” he said calmly. “I still need to do the laces on my boots. And besides, it is my birthday today. Don’t you think it’s the perfect opportunity to pull all the faces I want?”

Jord turned to face him. “You have been pulling faces since the day you were born, Your Highness.”

“Were you my mother’s midwife before you became a guard? I did not know of this.” Laurent did the right boot first. Before he began with the left one, he said, “You take liberties, Jord. I do not recall telling you to look at me.”

Ignoring him, Jord walked to the desk, picked up the golden hairbrush sitting on top of a book, and handed it to Laurent without saying a word.

Laurent stared a the comb for a moment. “Aren’t you a bit impatient today?” he asked. “Is there someone more important than me waiting for you outside?”

“Of course not,” Jord said. _The dog has learned how to lie_ , Laurent thought. “Your hair looks tangled, Your Highness. I only meant to let you know about it tactfully.”

If there was a part of Laurent that was tangled, it was not his hair but his stomach. He had been waiting for this day to come for months, and now that it was here Laurent felt nothing but dread and nausea. Every birthday since the day he’d turned thirteen had always felt like a chore, something to get over with as quickly as possible. This one was no exception.

Laurent combed his hair into a tight braid—the sort that did not require more skill than his fingers had to offer—and stood up as slowly as he could to watch the frown on Jord’s face deepen. Sometimes Laurent thought about telling Jord that he knew, that there was no need to hide any of this from him, but it was moments like this that made Laurent glad he hadn’t. It was a pleasure to watch Jord squirm.

“Wait for me in the dining hall,” Laurent told him as they both stepped out of his rooms. “I want to speak to my brother before eating breakfast.”

Jord was already slipping away, heading towards the gardens. “I will,” he called over his shoulder. “But there is something I must do first, Your Highness.”

Laurent considered telling him off, maybe even yelling at him that sucking cock so early in the morning would only make him more jittery throughout the day, but by the time he had made up his mind, Jord was already gone.

The clothes he was wearing were new and itchy. Laurent hated everything about his outfit except for the boots and the black vest. Both were tight enough to make him wince as he walked—the vest felt more like a corset with every breath he took, the boots he had purposefully bought a size smaller than usual—but the halls of the palace were deserted, and so Laurent let himself huff as much as he pleased as he made his way to Auguste’s rooms.

He had not even made it fully inside—the door was still slightly ajar behind him—before Auguste was pulling him in for a hug, his right hand resting on the nape of Laurent’s neck and giving it a squeeze. The braid Laurent had spent the last minutes putting together was probably a mess, but he forced himself not to complain about it. There’d be time later to fix it—the whole day, perhaps. It was not as though Laurent had better things to do with his hours.

“I was going to surprise you,” Auguste said, pulling back a little. He kept his hands on Laurent’s shoulders. “I should have known better. You never sleep the night before.”

Laurent huffed. Maybe the vest _was_ too tight after all. “I did sleep,” he said. Then, because he could not lie very well with Auguste’s eyes on him, he added, “A bit.”

“Happy—”

“Don’t.”

“—birthday,” Auguste said. His smile was so wide it was making Laurent want to smile as well. “I have a present for you.”

“I thought,” Laurent said carefully, “that we had agreed there would be no presents this year.”

Auguste scratched his chin, looking at the ceiling as if deep in thought. “Did we? I don’t recall. If I remember correctly you asked me not to get you anything while I stayed silent.”

“That is what an agreement is, Auguste.”

As usual, Auguste ignored him. He went over to his bed and, kneeling, pulled a wooden box from under it. When Laurent got closer, he realized the carvings on the lid were not gibberish—it was popular in Vere to carve flowers and emblems into wood nowadays—but actual words. _Four worlds_ , it read.

“What is this?” Laurent asked, watching as Auguste set the box on top of his bedding. It looked heavy, but Laurent made no move to help. His brain hurt from thinking of all the things that could be hiding inside. “It’s not an animal, is it? You know I don’t—”

“It’s a box.”

“I _know_ it’s a box, I can clearly see that. What I meant is—”

“If you want to know what’s inside, you’ll have to open it,” Auguste said. He sat down on the bed and played with that disgusting beard of his. “It won’t bite you.”

Against his better judgment, Laurent let his fingers run over the letters, feeling the quality of the wood under them. _It’s just a box_ , he told himself, _and it’s from Auguste._ There was nothing wrong with receiving presents. It only happened once a year.

Laurent could handle this.

The lid was just as heavy as Laurent had thought it would be. He pulled it off and placed it on the bed, next to Auguste’s thigh. Focusing on counting his breaths, Laurent looked inside the box. The urge to touch was there, but Laurent suppressed it instantly, turning his hands into fists. As much as he hated this tradition, he found himself wishing he could stretch out this moment and live in it for days to come. Auguste seemed happy and relaxed, beaming at him as he awaited Laurent’s verdict, and that was not something that happened very often.

“Do you like them?”

Laurent finally allowed himself to touch the spine of one of the books, the one with the small lions painted around a golden and capital A. “Yes,” was all he said, knowing that if he spoke another word his voice would break.

Auguste gave the box a light tap. “You mentioned these when Lord Guillaume was here. I had the Patran and the Vaskian ones translated.”

Laurent lifted an eyebrow. “But not the Akielon one?”

“You speak Akielon.”

 _I used to_. “I’m surprised there are only four volumes,” Laurent said. “I thought there would be five.”

“There are only four nations,” Auguste answered, face still calm but not as happy. He knew what Laurent was getting at. “Vere is still one kingdom, last time I checked. And I must be right, given the fact that I’m the King.”

Laurent thought of the burning effigies in Arran and the taunting songs and hymns the lowborn men that lived past the border were rumored to sing about Auguste. His brother might be the King in the north, but their uncle held the south.

“Of course,” Laurent said, not wanting to argue with his brother so early in the day. He remembered how, years ago in this same room, Auguste had gifted him a book about faraway lands and valiant voyagers. Gratitude had come easier to Laurent back then. Now he had to force himself to say the words. “Thank you. It’s a beautiful gift.”

“And,” Auguste said, jumping to his feet, “there is more.”

“Will you finally let me shave that disgusting thing off your face?”

Auguste stroked his beard again, this time with both hands. “I am told this is the latest trend in Patras.”

“We are not in Patras,” Laurent argued. “You look like a commoner. I fear that when our guests arrive they’ll think Jord is the King of Vere and you are his guard.”

“Ah, wouldn’t that be delightful to watch?”

“Auguste.”

“Laurent,” Auguste replied. He walked over to his desk and fumbled with a bunch of papers for a moment. When he finally found what he’d been looking for, he turned to Laurent with a triumphant expression on his face. “Here,” he said, offering the letter. “It arrived yesterday, but you know it is bad luck to open your presents before your birthday begins.”

Taking the letter from his brother’s hand, Laurent said, “You could have still given it to me yesterday. I wouldn’t have opened it right away.”

Laurent stared at the white letter in his hands. The envelope felt soft where others had touched it, but there was not a speck of dust or grime on it. His name was spelled perfectly in the back, and in the front, the wax seal was the color of pomegranate seeds.

“You would have,” Auguste said. His arm was around Laurent’s shoulders before Laurent could protest. “I asked the cooks to make your favorite desserts, even the one that tastes like curdled milk. Now tell me, am I or am I not the best brother in the four kingdoms?”

 _Five_ , Laurent corrected him in his head. “You would be,” he answered slowly, slipping the letter into the inside pocket of his suffocating vest, “if you got rid of that beard.”

*

_—and my Veretian is poorer now than it was the last time you were here. There is no one here to practice with, and ~~the Exalted~~ ~~the King Da~~ Damianos is far too busy for me to bother him with this. I talked to my mother about going with him to Vere, but her health is frail and my sisters are not yet grown. Since—_

*

“Your Highness,” Aimeric said.

Laurent stopped reading but did not look up from the letter. It was hard enough to focus on the words with all the noise around him—Auguste’s cackles as he laughed at one of the courtier’s jokes, the clinking spoons, the sounds of food being chewed—but being addressed directly made it impossible for Laurent to continue.

“I am busy at the moment,” he said. “Perhaps later.”

 _Or never_.

Aimeric, being Aimeric, did not relent. He pushed his chair closer until his thigh was pressed against Laurent’s and whispered, “I have a present for you.”

Laurent slowly put the letter down on the table and flattened it with his hand, smoothing out the small wrinkles. He turned his face to the side to look at Aimeric, hating him immensely, and said, “How kind of you.”

The gift was not wrapped, and Aimeric held it in the center of his palm for Laurent to see. It was a silver barrette with the tiniest of pearls in the center. If anyone else had given it to him, Laurent would have commented on how pretty it was. But this was Aimeric.

“It’s…” He paused, knowing that Jord’s eyes were on him. Jord’s eyes were always on him when he spoke to Aimeric. “Adequate.”

Aimeric smiled and put the barrette down on top of the letter Laurent had been reading. His brown curls were a mess, making his face look even more boyish than usual. Laurent thought about asking him who had been pulling at his hair for it to look like that but then decided against it. He was afraid Aimeric would answer honestly, and Laurent did not fancy sicking up the dariole he had just eaten all over the breakfast table.

“I heard that the King of Akielos has already arrived at Marches,” Aimeric chatted on. He was annoying like that. “He’ll be here the day after tomorrow, at most. At least you will not be forced to endure his presence during your birthday, Your Highness.”

“No,” Laurent agreed, “but I do not know which situation is worse: enduring his barbaric ways or enduring your tedious blabber.”

Aimeric stilled. His eyes were very wide and very green, framed by long and dark eyelashes. It was easy to see why Jord liked him so much. If forced to, even Laurent could admit he was pretty. “I am sorry, Your Highness.”

Auguste, ever the savior, interrupted Laurent’s acidic response. “I see that Aimeric has gotten you a present as well. And to think you didn’t want any this year.” He pushed a plate full of steaming pastries in Laurent’s direction. “These,” he declared, wiggling his eyebrows, “I had filled with chocolate and cream.”

“How many have you eaten already?” Laurent asked him. “A dozen?”

“Four,” Auguste answered, which was a lie. “Your birthday is a special occasion, don’t you think? It’s a day of celebration.”

“How many?”

“Seven,” Auguste said grudgingly.

Laurent laughed. It was easier when he pretended it was just the two of them in the room. “If you continue to eat like this, your horse won’t be able to carry you.”

Auguste ignored him. “When Dion gets here, you’ll be outnumbered. We will eat these by the thousands.”

Ice fingers closed around Laurent’s heart and squeezed. “He’s not coming. His mother isn’t doing so well.”

Auguste reached out to touch his hand, but Laurent moved it away. No matter how much Laurent wished they were alone, it was not the case, and being coddled in front of the whole court was not something Laurent wanted to put up with today. He was overly aware of Aimeric’s eyes on him, and Jord’s, and everyone else’s. Laurent did not want to give them any reason to gossip.

“I’m sorry,” Auguste said gently. “I know you wanted to see him.”

Laurent’s brain came up with all sorts of colorful things to reply— _it’s your fault I have not seen him in years_ and _if you’d only let me go back this wouldn’t be happening_ —but this was not the place nor the time to say them. It had been years since he’d found pleasure in hurting Auguste.

“I’m going to the library,” Laurent said, pushing away from the table and Aimeric’s—now his—barrette. The letter was the only thing he grabbed. “Try not to eat the whole plate,” he murmured to his brother.

“I’ll save some for you,” Auguste replied, trying to sound cheerful, but already his smile was slipping away from him.

No sooner had Laurent set foot out of the dining hall than Jord was one step behind him, closer than his own shadow. For a while, Laurent ignored him. It was easy and Laurent was too tired from staying up all night to stare at the ceiling of his rooms to indulge in some healthy banter, but the moment they were out of the gardens, Jord seemed to have run out of patience.

He stood in front of Laurent, blocking the way. Holding up something shiny, he said, “You forgot this, Your Highness.”

“How could I have left it behind?” Laurent asked sardonically. He made no attempt to grab the pin. “Consider it yours now. A gift from me for being such an honest man and not stealing it when no one was looking.”

Jord clenched his jaw. “Would it kill you to be nice for once? He spent hours agonizing over what to give you.”

“I am always nice, Jord. I must say it does not surprise me it took him so long to choose a present. He’s always been rather simple.” Laurent tapped at his forehead twice for emphasis. “But he had help this time, didn’t he?”

“I don’t—”

“You do know,” Laurent said. “Did you go into the city market with him? Held his hand while he tried to decide between a silver hairpin and a leather belt?”

“The barrette,” Jord said quietly, “was his mother’s.”

Laurent had not been expecting that. He made sure his surprise did not show on his face; there was little he wanted less than for Jord to know Aimeric’s little sentimental trick had worked. It was his birthday, after all, and he was enjoying this. Perhaps he had been mistaken before to think of his cruel streak as something he’d left behind in his childhood. There was a sort of sick joy in this and Laurent, who had never really experienced much joy in his life to begin with, held onto it like a drowning man to a piece of wood.

“Better yet then. You did not even have to leave the bed.”

Jord closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, probably trying to calm himself down before he said something he’d regret later. “Your Highness,” he started.

“You have been spending too much time with him,” Laurent said. He hated how childish the accusation sounded and quickly added, “How many times have I asked you not to call me that when it’s just the two of us in a room?”

“I would hate to end up like Benoît, Your Highness.”

Laurent felt the urge to grind his teeth and stomped on it hard. “My brother did not have Benoît flogged for calling me by my given name, Jord. You know that.”

Everyone knew that. It had been the only thing courtiers and pets talked about for days. If Jord was bringing it up now, it was only because he wanted to remind Laurent about it as if to say, _look, this was all your fault_. It was a fine line between ruling with an iron fist and not ruling at all, and Auguste walked it perfectly. Most of the time, anyways.

And it wasn’t as though Laurent hadn’t protested against Benoît being flogged. Half the guards in the palace talked about Laurent as if he were a piece of meat to be devoured. Benoît’s biggest fault had been murmuring obscenities far too loudly and being heard.

Had it been anyone but Auguste who heard him, nothing would have happened. How many times had Laurent walked past a group of guards and heard a poorly concealed whistle? How many times had he looked up from his book to find someone staring at him, eyes darkened by something he did not dare name? If Auguste punished every man who spoke about Laurent like he was a pet, then the palace would be without guards and only half the courtiers would be allowed to stay.

Jord looked down at the silver pin he was still holding and ran one of his thumbs over the pearl. “It’s not what you think,” he said after a moment. “We’re not…”

Laurent waited for him to go on, all the while laughing to himself. It was not as though he needed Jord to confirm his suspicions, but having him struggle to get the lies out of his mouth was amusing. _This_ , Laurent thought, _is my birthday present_. He cared not for the barrette, the books, or the exotic gifts from abroad that would arrive with Auguste’s guests. This was a secret and, as such, it was power.

But Jord remained silent.

“What I think,” Laurent said, “is that you two are fucking. Am I wrong?”

“Yes,” Jord answered.

It took Laurent a moment to register the word. “He sucked your cock this morning,” he said sharply. In his head, he hesitated. Aimeric’s curls had seemed wilder than usual, his lips the color of wine. Surely that could only mean one thing. “He—”

“We kissed,” Jord said. And then, looking straight into Laurent’s eyes, he added, “Your Highness.”

Laurent tilted his head, assessed him, and said, “You dare to contradict me? I have been watching you. Did you think I would not notice the way you look at him? Or the way his smiles bring a spring to your step?” He took one step closer as if daring Jord to take one back, but Jord did not move. “You disappear at odd times and come back smelling like hay, Aimeric trailing behind you like a puppy. Yet you have the gall to call me a liar?”

“He isn’t of age yet,” Jord said very slowly as if he wasn’t sure Laurent would understand him otherwise.

As it usually happened when he spoke of Aimeric, Laurent felt his blood turning hotter by the minute, simmering inside his veins. “ _So_?” he asked, and the word made Jord stumble backward slightly. “Ah, you mistake me for a fool then. You braid his hair and hold his hand, help him rummage through the cheap knick-knacks his family left behind, and you do it all without getting anything in return. Is that what you want me to believe?”

“It is the truth.”

Laurent laughed. The sound traveled in every direction, bouncing off the walls of the empty hall and sneaking into the gardens. “Except that isn’t the whole truth, is it, Jord? You said it yourself. He’s not of age _yet_.” He paused, looking at the expression on Jord’s face and being certain that, at last, Jord was allowing himself to hate him. “You’re biding your time until you can fuck him without feeling disgusted with yourself.”

Jord raised his hand. For a split-second, Laurent was certain he was going to be struck across the face. Then, slowly, Jord opened his hand and let the pin drop to the floor with a loud clack. It landed next to Laurent’s right boot.

“Your Highness,” Jord said. He was not looking at Laurent anymore. “Enjoy the library. I’ll be in the dining hall, should you need anything from me.”

Laurent watched him go. His limp was better today than it’d been last week—his knee ached when it was cold and damp—and if Laurent focused on the rigid line of Jord’s shoulders, it was easy to miss it entirely.

Was it guilt that made Laurent bend over and pick up the hairpin? He paused twice, hand outstretched and fingers brushing against the cold silver, before finally grabbing it from the floor. He inspected it from all angles, touching the pearl again and again as if that would make it any less real. Laurent wanted it to be a fake.

There was an _L_ engraved on the back. It had been Loyse’s, and now it was Laurent’s. A fitting gift, all things considered. Laurent wondered if it really had been Aimeric’s idea or if Jord had convinced him to give this away.

A memory slammed into him as he pushed the library doors open. The voice inside his head was distorted, fictionalized by time. _Sometimes people do things for others, not because they have to or because they want something in return._ Laurent froze, one hand splayed on the door and the other clenching around the hairpin.

The voice went on: _Have you never done something out of love?_

*

_I have not seen Aeneas in weeks. It seems pottery is an ~~aquir adquired~~ acquired taste and it keeps him busy. When he tried it last month, he said it was the most awful thing he had ever been forced to do. The other day his mother told me he claimed to like it better than forging iron with Timon’s father. _

_I have done as you asked me and tried to teach him how to read, but he is stubborn as a mule. He thinks it’s ~~acceptible~~ acceptable to call me by my name! I have told him multiple times I prefer the title of Master of ~~unfathlomabel~~ unfathomable knowledge, but he—_

*

The first arrow hit the bullseye. And the second. And the third.

Laurent was about to let go of the fourth one— _nock, draw, loose_ —when Lazar’s clapping distracted him. He had been so focused on hitting his target that he’d failed to notice someone had joined him in the private arena.

“The King has sent me to find you,” Lazar said, sitting down on the wooden bench Laurent had explicitly told him not to touch a thousand times before. He cracked his knuckles and craned his neck, a loud popping sound making him wince. “He says you are not to miss dinner tonight.”

“Well,” Laurent said, trying to concentrate again as he aimed for that sweet spot in the center again. “I am found. Now leave.”

Lazar let out a long whistle. It was not like the ones Laurent usually heard from other guards. “Jord warned me you were in a vicious mood, but I must say I did not believe him.”

The fourth arrow missed by a few inches. Laurent’s fury felt cold as ice where earlier it had been hot as fire. He considered aiming for Lazar’s head next.

“Did he use those exact words?” Laurent asked. Would the arrow kill him? He doubted it, but there was always a small chance that it would. Ah, the mess. “Or are you paraphrasing him, as usual?”

Lazar shrugged. “He told me to tread lightly.”

“And lightly you trod.”

“I am a very cautious man,” Lazar said, “but it is the challenge I enjoy.”

 _The eye?_ Laurent thought and then discarded the idea. _Perhaps one of his feet_. He knew where to aim so it would hurt the most. “Cautious,” Laurent said, “is not a word I’d use to describe you. I take it Jord told you what happened and you are here to gossip.”

Lazar lay down across the bench. “The King sent me, not Jord. But yes, he told me of your assumptions, Your Highness.”

“Assumptions?”

“The boy has Jord wrapped around his finger,” Lazar said, purposefully ignoring the edge to Laurent’s words. “If I did not know any better, I would have arrived at the same conclusion as you.”

“It’s because I know better that I know they’re fucking,” Laurent said. “Have you asked yourself why Aimeric chose him?”

Lazar let out a surprised laugh. “Jord is not that terrible, Your Highness. You’d be surprised by how long the list of people who have slept in his bed is.”

How mad would Auguste be if Laurent turned Lazar from the fastest man in his troops to the slowest one? “And yet you claim Aimeric is not one of them.”

“The boy’s still green,” Lazar said. He was avoiding Laurent’s eyes. He was thinking of someone who would not have cared about Aimeric’s age. “He’s highborn, too. Propriety is important to them both.”

“Do you even know the meaning of that word?”

Lazar scratched at his cheek with his thumb. His beard was even more disgusting than Auguste’s. “Green?” he asked. “I believe it is a color, Your Highness.”

Laurent let go of the string and watched at the arrow pierced through the air, missing Lazar’s right foot by a hair. Watching him sit up, Laurent said, “If you think there’s anything proper about Aimeric, then he has you wrapped around his finger as well.”

Lazar glanced at the arrow half-buried in the ground. The silence swelled between them. “The King awaits,” he said at last.

Laurent took his time putting the bow and the arrows away. The one he had shot at Lazar he saved for last, plucking it from the ground like a flower. Its head was dirty, a dusty grey color where before it had been bright white. They both stared at it, without speaking, for a long minute.

Then Laurent slipped it into the quiver and away from view. This, too, was power. He preferred secrecy over bloodshed, but there was no denying which one made a man stronger. And today, after four years of waiting for this moment to come, Laurent was finally a man.

If he still felt as green as an unripe fruit then he was the only one who knew about it.

*

_—think my mother is still trying to convince me that marrying Gaia is the right thing. I laugh a lot when she asks me if I have gifted her something every time I return from the sea. Aeneas knows little about women but even he agrees that a stingray is not a courtship gift. If given the choice, I would like to be a fish or a bird, but not like the ones I catch and eat. I do not think I would like to be eaten._

*

The map on the wall was of Patras. The cities were a cluster of black dots, scribbled names Laurent could not really pronounce out loud, and the capital was a single red speck in the shape of a small star. _Bazal_ , it read in blood-like ink. It was the most hideous thing Laurent had ever seen.

“It has been a while,” the man said, “since you have come to talk to me. I did not expect to see you here today.”

Laurent continued to stare at the map. It was the only thing that was different about the room. What had there been in its place, before? He could not remember. The thought that one moment something could be there only to be gone the next made him pause.

“I thought it would be different,” Laurent told him without an introduction. “That I would feel…”

“New?”

Laurent ran his tongue over the tender place in his mouth where a sore had festered for years. _Bite, bite, bite_. “Yes.”

“A man falls asleep when the sun sets and awakes when it rises. He is the same man.” A pause. “Even the sun does not change.”

“I would like to,” Laurent said. “Change, I mean.”

“How?”

“I do not know.”

“Think about it then.”

Laurent did. For once, he did not mind being told what to do. “I would like to be less like this,” he said. Then, tentatively, “Laughter comes easy to my brother.”

“Sad men laugh instead of weeping.”

Rolling his eyes, Laurent said, “And joyous men weep sometimes from laughing too hard. You _know_ what I meant.”

“Do you envy your brother?”

“No,” Laurent said without hesitation. He thought of the dark circles under Auguste’s eyes, the burden that rested on his shoulders. It had never been the crown he wanted. “It is not envy.”

“Then what is it?”

He could taste the word in his mouth. It was bitter and Laurent wanted it out, away, gone. But he also knew once it was said he would not be able to take it back. His eyes traced the sharp mountains on the west of Patras, right where the four nations touched. He could not help but think _there, that is the place for me_.

“Fear,” Laurent said.

“Of what?”

“Of my brother failing.”

An arched eyebrow. “Do you think he will fail?”

The answers warred inside Laurent. _Yes, no, I don’t know._ He had lain awake the night before thinking of this. Did he think Auguste would someday get the south back? Not as long as their uncle lived. Another question rose in him, too dark to be asked.

Did he want his brother to fail?

“I had a dream the other night,” Laurent said instead of answering. The old man loved to talk about dreams. “I’d like to tell you about it.”

The man did not say anything, crossing and uncrossing his legs as if trying to find a comfortable position. After years of living in the palace, his clothing was more Veretian than Patran, but Laurent still caught the few details that gave him away. No respectable Veretian would wear the cuffs of his pants rolled up like that.

“It was about the war.”

“Was your brother in it?”

“Yes,” Laurent said. “He was dead, gutted like a pig.”

“By whose hand?”

Laurent closed his eyes. Despite the room being cool and full of shadows, his head felt too warm. He had not sipped the warm drink he’d been offered and so he knew it was not poison or chalis. It was definitely not chalis, for Laurent knew how the drug made him feel and this was not it. Perhaps it was only his conscience, eating him up from the inside out.

“Mine,” he said. “It was my hand that held the sword.”

*

_—your birthday. He said he will give it to you. It is not a lot, but I think you will like it. I enjoyed making it. ~~Did you~~ AND it is not a fish._

*

The day Auguste’s guests arrived, Laurent woke up before dawn broke and, wearing only a loose linen blouse and the pants he had slept in, he headed towards the stables and locked himself in a stall with his mare.

Her hair was the color of autumn leaves and it was so soft Laurent liked to press his face against it when no one was looking. On that particular morning, he decided he wanted to brush her hair before feeding her. She’d be more difficult and fussy, which is how Laurent wanted her to behave today. He wanted this task to take up all of his time so that he would not have to go outside until it was absolutely necessary. Let Auguste do the greeting and thanking. Laurent would rather do this than stand under the sun as his brother complimented each person that rode into the palace.

She was especially warm under his hands. When Laurent scratched her behind the ears, she neighed and huffed and, finally, relaxed. Had Aimeric seen him searching for the brush in the pile of hay on the floor, he would have scowled and demanded Laurent let him do it instead. _This is no job for a prince, Your Highness_ , he’d say. And Jord would probably agree with him.

As it turned out, even Aimeric was more liked than him nowadays.

Laurent brushed her everywhere—her legs, her belly, her back—and by the time he had finished his arm ached and his shoulders were so sore he could barely move without groaning. As he rested, Laurent thought of braiding her mane. It would not only take a long time but would also help with the fidgetiness that was creeping up on him. His fingers were itching for a task to lose themselves in.

By the time he had finished the second set of plaids, voices and laughter could be heard outside. Laurent ignored them, knowing that none of the truly important people would bother him in the stables. They had all most likely brought servants with them and, even if they hadn’t, Auguste would see that their horses were handled by a bunch of nameless people.

“Hush,” Laurent chided her. As soon as the main doors had been opened and some of the stable boys had entered with foreign horses, she had started to neigh and whine. “I do not want them to see me yet,” he whispered. “They’ll tell Auguste I’m here.”

She neighed again, defiant.

Soon enough the boys left and Laurent was alone once more. He fed her an apple first, the one he had meant to eat for breakfast, and then stole a carrot from the stall to his right. Her happiness at the treats made Laurent smile despite everything else. Pressing his cheek to her back, he let his eyes fall closed, hand tangling in her braided hair.

He pulled back as though burned when the doors of the stables slammed open abruptly.

“—there,” the deep voice was saying. Not a stable boy, then. “He’s temperamental. I can handle him.”

A low reply was murmured but Laurent could not make out the words. Then, the doors slammed shut again and there was no other sound but that of the stranger’s horse neighing. It was a black stallion, and a big one judging by the size of his hoofs. _What a brute_ , he thought. Overcompensating.

He closed his eyes and buried his face in his mare’s hair again, hiding it from view. He had only been able to see the horse’s legs from under the door of his stall, and he was not interested in finding out who the rider was. A Patran duke, perhaps.

The stallion whined loudly in the stall next to Laurent’s, either demanding water or attention. Or both. Laurent thought to himself that the nobleman who had brought the animal would not stay to see that it was properly taken care of. Once he’d gone, Laurent would slip into the stall and feed him a carrot or two.

“I know,” the man said, and his voice, now up close, was like an arrow-shaft to Laurent’s stomach. He was no stranger. “I should not have called you temperamental.”

It was a moment or two before Laurent remembered himself. He heard the pouring of water and the sounds of chewing which meant the horse had been given something to munch on. The door of the stall creaked open and Laurent, hating himself for it, spied through the crack of his own door one set of feet in leather sandals. Both the leather and the skin under it were a rich brown color as if tanned by the summer sun.

Laurent’s hair was loose and it touched the ground gracelessly, but he was too enthralled by the man walking past his stall to notice.

The man, however, noticed him instantly. He stopped right outside the door and crouched down, not enough to look inside the stall but low enough that he could touch Laurent’s hair.

“Hello,” he said. His touch on one of Laurent’s golden locks was there one second and gone the next. He had retrieved his hand without being asked. “Do you live here or have you come with the Patrans?”

 _He does not know who I am_ , Laurent thought irascibly. And then, another thought: _why would he?_ Not only had they not seen each other in four years, but Damianos also could not see his face. He had probably stopped walking because the locks of golden hair had caught his eye, nothing more. He probably thought Laurent was a pet, hiding in the stables because he liked horses better than his masters.

In a way, he was not wrong.

Laurent stood and turned away just as Damianos opened the door. It was a great offense not answering when the King asked a question, no matter where said King was from. Stupidly, Laurent thought Damianos’s reprimand would die on his lips once he saw him fully, even from behind. But then he remembered the clothes he was wearing, the mess his hair was, the sweat that was clinging to his skin after a morning spent fussing over his mare.

He looked, and probably smelled, like a stable boy.

“She’s beautiful,” Damianos said. He did not reach out or force Laurent to turn. He did not even walk inside the stall. “Is she the King’s?”

Amusement and fun uncoiled inside Laurent. He had always liked games.

“The Prince’s,” he said, trying not to sound too confident. He thought of the way Aimeric spoke to Auguste, all bowed head and flushed cheeks. Since Damianos could not see his face, his voice would have to pull all the tricks on its own.

There was a moment of silence during which Laurent did not dare breathe.

And then, “I should have known. The Prince has always liked mares better.”

Laurent was about to reply when they were interrupted. Nikandros shouted from the door something fast in Akielon, followed by _Exalted_. His accent was just as terrible as Laurent remembered it to be, and so the rest of the request was lost in the air the moment it left his mouth.

Again, in Veretian, Damianos said, “I hope next time we meet I get to see your face.”

Laurent said nothing. One did not simply ignore a King _twice_. He braced himself for the scold that was sure to follow, the hand on his shoulder that would turn him around to reveal his face, but Damianos seemed full of surprises today. He only laughed and retreated, closing the door of Laurent’s stall softly behind him.

His voice tangled with Nikandros’s, both speaking fast and low, their words an Akielon mess Laurent could not have deciphered even if he’d tried. It had been so long since he’d heard the language…

The mare neighed, demanding to be the center of Laurent’s attention. Now that he was alone again, Laurent complied. He only had a few minutes before he’d be forced to leave.

A bath and some nicer clothes would maybe refresh Damianos’s memory. Maybe.

*

_Timon’s family is ~~well good~~ better. My mother spends some time with his mother in the evenings and she says every week she looks a little better and eats a little more. I miss him a lot, ~~specialy espesially~~ especially when I’m on my father’s boat at sea. I do not think he misses us at all. That is what I like to think, for that means he is happy where he is. Aeneas has not come back to the docks since ~~it hap the accide~~ then. _

*

His clothes had already been laid out for him on the bed when he returned to his rooms after having bathed for what felt like hours. The baths had been the only place in the palace that had not been invaded by strangers, and so Laurent had allowed himself to doze off in the warm water, trying to forget that he was supposed to have joined Auguste already.

Once in his pants and cerulean jacket—stiff, itchy, and annoyingly tight—Laurent decided to spend an absurd amount of time brushing his hair. He thought of wearing it loose, but then remembered there would be guests today and decided to plait it. Halfway through the braid, he noticed the silver hairpin on his desk and reached out for it before his mind had caught up to the motion. It was simple and the pearl was too small and didn’t Laurent own at least a dozen prettier, golden barrettes? Why would he wear this one if he wanted to impress Auguste’s guests?

He clipped it on, securing the braid in place, and did not let himself dwell on it a minute longer. He knew that if he did, he’d toss the pin into the fire and mess up his hair.

Lazar and Jord were waiting outside when he opened the door. They were in their finest clothes as well. Although Lazar’s boots were dirty and scuffed and his beard remained untrimmed, he still looked nicer than usual. He kept pulling at the tight collar of his shirt as if it strangled him and murmuring under his breath until Jord shot him down with a quelling look.

Jord looked the way he did most of the time: polished and severe. He did not seem excited to speak to Laurent and kept his gaze low, eyes looking at a spot over Laurent’s right shoulder.

“Shall we go now?” Laurent asked them, stepping out. “I think I am finally ready.”

Lazar snorted. “Took you long enough,” he muttered, trying to be quiet, but Laurent heard him anyways.

Jord elbowed him once. “Your Highness, the King awaits.”

 _Yes_ , Laurent thought, _the King is always waiting_. Instead, he said, “Let us go, then. Have all the guests arrived already?”

“The Vaskian… _lady_ ,” Lazar said, “is yet to make an appearance.”

With Jord on his left and Lazar on his right, Laurent started the long walk to the dining hall. He made sure that Jord saw the barrette in his hair by playing with the braid as innocently as he could. They walked in silence, the only sound besides their breathing and footsteps were Lazar’s colorful insults as he continued to tug on the collar of his shirt. He was like a hound on a too-tight leash.

Jord and Lazar stepped in front of him once they had reached the right doors. They pushed them open for him and, instantly, noise and laughter and music flooded the hallway where Laurent had been left standing in. It was so loud Laurent almost flinched.

He took one step inside, holding his breath. And then another. And another.

The tables and benches had been pushed to the walls to make room for the noblemen, courtiers, and foreign guests to stand around sipping wine and mead. There were pets too, but those Laurent ignored dutifully.

Auguste had warned him there would be many of them, more than Laurent had ever seen in Arles before, for he had to keep everyone entertained and sated for days. They were covered in jewelry, half-naked, and the sight was enough to make Laurent want to retch.

A hundred lit torches and candles illuminated the room, each of them a small sun. There were so many of them no shadows were projected on the walls, and for that Laurent was glad.

Auguste was wearing his crown, which made him the easiest to spot. It was made of gold and had three rubies the color of freshly spilled blood. Under the candlelight, the crown seemed to glow, forcing one to look at it despite all the other beautiful things and people in the room. His brother was wearing that awful blue cape he adored so much—the one with the silver star on the back—and the smile on his face was so wide when his eyes met Laurent’s across the room that for a moment Laurent was scared his face would break in two.

Laurent kept his eyes on him as he walked forward, knowing that Auguste was not alone but paying those around him no mind. It was always easier like this, and Laurent liked it easy. He was eighteen now, a grown man, and he wanted—no, _had_ —to make his brother proud. There simply was no other option. If he embarrassed Auguste tonight… if he was disrespectful and offended someone…

These were his brother’s allies. In Vere, nowadays voluptuous and decadent, country of honeyed poison, allies were worth more than gold.

Only when he was standing by Auguste’s side did he allow himself to look at his brother’s company.

To Auguste’s left, there was a Patran man Laurent had seen at court before. He had come when Auguste had asked him to, had acted as an Ambassador to Patras for years, and his name was Torveld, younger brother to King Torgeir. He smiled at Laurent, nodding along to whatever Auguste was saying as an introduction. He had kind eyes.

And to Auguste’s right, was Damianos.

His feet were in a different pair of sandals than the ones he had worn to the stables earlier that day. This leather was nicer, more expensive, and it was several shades darker than the skin under the straps. His legs were bare up to the knee, where his white chiton hid everything else from view. The cotton looked soft and the hem was embroidered with golden thread. Two circular pins held the outfit together at the shoulders. A heavy-looking red cloak was fastened around his neck by another golden pin, this time in the shape of a lion’s head.

There was no crown on Damianos’s head but a golden wreath of leaves the color of pure gold. When he tilted his head, they glimmered like a thousand fireflies.

Laurent looked him in the eyes—his whole face looked older, his eyes even browner, his mouth stained by the wine he had been drinking—and gave him a careful nod. Damianos did not return it. He did not even blink.

“Prince Laurent,” Torveld said, forcing Laurent to look at him. “I am sorry to hear I missed your birthday.”

“Do not fret over it,” Laurent told him easily. “It was just another day to me.”

Auguste laughed. “Liar. You do not get presents every day.”

“I should,” Laurent said before he remembered his place. It was too late to take it back, but what he found on Torveld’s face when he looked at him was nothing unpleasant.

The edges of Torveld’s mouth were curling upwards into a smile. “You should,” he agreed. “How old—”

“Eighteen,” Damianos said, speaking up for the first time. His voice was rougher than it had been four years ago, which explained why it had taken Laurent a moment to recognize him. “He’s eighteen.”

Laurent tilted his head. “So you remember me now?”

“Have you seen each other already today?” Auguste asked, frowning. “You were not there when Damianos arrived. Where did you meet?”

Damianos opened his mouth, but Laurent was faster. “At the stables. I was…” _Hiding_. “I did not want to trouble the stable boys with my mare. You know how temperamental she is.”

A courtier came to speak to Auguste, whispering something about the Council and some pets, and so his brother excused himself from the conversation. Damianos did not linger for long either. One of his guards came up to him, excusing himself a hundred times before actually stating his issue.

Damianos gave Laurent a long look as the guard explained that Nikandros wanted to have a word with him in private. “You have grown,” he said in Akielon when the man had stopped blabbering. A smile bloomed on his face, the first since they had met again. “Little brat.”

In slow Akielon, Laurent answered, “Your pet is waiting for you.”

“I’ll tell him you said that,” Damianos said. “We will speak later?”

“I suppose it cannot be helped.”

Grinning, Damianos left. Laurent watched his back until the crowd swallowed him up and only the glimmer of his wreath could be seen.

Torveld lifted an eyebrow. “Had you two met before?”

“When I was a child,” Laurent said. “I spent a season in Akielos with him and his family.”

“Oh. Is that how you know the language? I have always wanted to learn but I’m afraid I have never found the time. You seem…” Torveld hesitated. “Fluent.”

 _Please be polite_ , Auguste had told him last night during dinner. Laurent forced his mouth to twist into a smile. “I could teach you,” he said, “if you’d like.”

The music seemed to grow louder—the harp and lyre bleeding into one single melody that filled the whole room—and people around them had started to split into pairs. Soon enough there would be dancing. Out of the corner of his eye, Laurent spotted Jord still standing by the entrance doors. He was not looking at Laurent, but at Aimeric who was by himself in a corner.

_Pathetic._

“I would be honored,” Torveld said, and Laurent could no longer remember what they had been talking about but he made sure to keep smiling anyway. “Your brother told me you were responsible for the alternative trading routes to Ladehors. That is truly impressive. It took Councilor Louis months to get a good bargain on the price.”

Laurent straightened. The south—that was something he could spend hours discussing. He’d spent the last two years studying furiously every inch of Vere on his maps, had read book after book on political strategies and war. He could be polite while they discussed trading routes and imports. It was better than discussing other things, such as why they were all gathered here tonight in the first place.

Torveld was a good listener. He did not only nod along to what Laurent was saying, but he also asked questions and pointed out details that could only have been noticed by someone who was paying attention.

Soon the conversation veered into another direction and away from the conflicts in the south, much to Laurent’s disappointment. Torveld asked him questions no one had really asked him before, but Laurent thought nothing of it. When had Laurent last forced himself to seem approachable?

“Do you like to ride?” Torveld asked him. “You mentioned owning a mare before.”

Laurent was surprised by the question. They had been discussing the similarities between Patran and Akielon, nothing this personal. “Yes, I—she was a gift from my brother a couple of years ago.” A pause. Awkwardly, he added, “Do you?”

Torveld smiled. He looked younger like this, pink-cheeked and with his teeth on full display, but Laurent knew they were not the same age. In fact, he had an inkling Torveld was older than Auguste.

“Yes. I was wondering… We could ride together one of these days. I would love to see the forest your brother told me about earlier.”

Instead of answering, Laurent motioned for a servant to come closer. “Fetch me some water." He then turned to Torveld and, pointing at the cup he was holding, asked, “Would you like more wine?”

A nod from Torveld sent the servant hurrying to comply. Once they were alone—or rather, without the servant’s eyes on them—Torveld offered Laurent another easy smile. “The King of Akielos will be terribly disappointed.”

Laurent stilled. “Why do you say that?”

“You do not like wine.”

“No,” Laurent agreed. He fell silent when the slave returned to hand him a brimming cup of water and watched as he poured Torveld more wine. “Why would King Damianos care about that?”

Torveld sipped his wine. “He told your brother that he had brought the two of you wine, mead and… Forgive me, I do not remember the name of the last beverage.” He was standing closer to Laurent than before, but not _too_ close. It was the sort of distance two long time friends would keep if reunited. “May I ask why you dislike wine? If it’s the bitter aftertaste, there are some Patran varieties that—”

“It is not the aftertaste.”

And it was not that he disliked wine, either. He had liked it once, even loved it, and it was exactly for that reason that he had not tasted it again since the age of thirteen. Wine made fools of wise men. It loosened their tongues and turned them soft and pliant. Sometimes it had the opposite effect, Laurent had noticed this while watching the guards, making people raise their fists and fight for the pettiest of reasons. He’d been soft and pliant, he’d been angry too, although in smaller doses. Not again.

Laurent caught a glimpse of Auguste over Torveld’s shoulder. He was trying to make his way back to them, but every three steps someone stopped him for an idle chat. Laurent wondered if his brother was worried because he’d left Laurent unsupervised for too long or if he simply did not like his guests as much as he liked Laurent.

Torveld cleared his throat. “I did not mean to assume… I suppose it is a bit uncommon, that is all.”

Vere was famous for the quality of its pets and its wine. _Well_ , Laurent thought of saying, _it’s not as though the vineyards belong to my brother anymore_. He clamped his mouth shut, swallowing his own words. The remark was too barbed, too direct. Instead, Laurent let his eyelashes flutter.

He could be polite.

“I have never tasted Patran wine,” Laurent said carefully. He did not want to give Torveld the impression that he wanted to try it. “Is it sweet?”

Torveld went on to explain the difference between Veretian and Patran wine. As much as Laurent had internally praised the man for paying attention to him as Laurent raved on about the south, it was clear Torveld was not as observant when it came to realizing Laurent did not care about wine in the slightest. He spoke eloquently and without condescension, something that had Laurent sort of wishing he could find the topic at hand interesting.

And then, Torveld paused. He lifted his hand as if to touch Laurent and stopped when he realized what he’d been about to do. “Your—” He broke off, letting his hand drop to his side. “That is a beautiful barrette.”

Laurent took a long sip of his water. It was lukewarm. “Yes,” was all he said.

Auguste reached them, at last, and glanced at Laurent’s cup without any sort of discretion. When he saw there was only water in it, he let out a sigh that had Laurent rolling his eyes so hard they ached afterward.

“Has Damianos left already?” Auguste asked. “He seemed excited to see you, Laurent. I’m surprised he did not stay around a little longer.”

“Nikandros wanted to have a word with him.”

Smiling at Torveld, Auguste said, “What were you two talking about?”

“I was just complimenting Laurent on his hairpin,” Torveld said. Now that Auguste was here, he had taken two steps away from Laurent. “Pearls suit him.”

Auguste draped his arm over Laurent’s shoulders, making Laurent freeze. They were not supposed to touch in public, let alone in the middle of a party Auguste had organized to prove to everyone in Vere, especially the south, that he had powerful allies who relied on him. They were not supposed to touch each other and this—this was more than Laurent had had of his brother in front of strangers _in years_.

“Everything suits him,” Auguste said. His hand squeezed Laurent’s shoulder twice. If it was a message, Laurent did not get it. “Are you a married man, Torveld?”

“No, Your Majesty.”

Auguste made a noncommittal sound. “Neither am I,” he said, as though it wasn’t public knowledge already. “Have you met any of King Torgeir’s daughters?”

“I cannot say I have had the pleasure,” Torveld answered. His eyes were on Auguste’s face, diligently ignoring Laurent’s presence. “I only met the youngest one, the babe, when I visited the capital last year. My oldest niece wanted to be here tonight, I was told, but an unexpected illness prevented her from coming.”

“Consumption,” Laurent offered. He had read that particular letter to Auguste out loud. “Not that unexpected, I’m afraid.”

Instead of chiding him, Auguste laughed. He looked like he wanted to add something, but the announcement that a show was about to begin had him surrendering to silence. Auguste pulled Laurent with him as the crowd parted to let him through to his seat, and shortly after they had both sunk into their chairs the entertainment began in earnest.

The pet had a contract with one of Auguste’s friends. He was using the dining table as a stage, something Laurent found absolutely repulsive. Barefoot, the pet made his way from one end to the other, skillfully avoiding everyone’s cups. Laurent found himself wishing he would trip and land on his neck, and the cruelness of the idea startled him enough to make him feel ashamed for a second.

Dancing was something any decent pet could do. This one’s specialty was not dancing, but fire-play. His hair was loose and longer than Laurent’s, a cherry red color that looked like it was made of flames when he moved. He held a lit torch in each hand. The emeralds he was wearing around his neck gleamed and glowed every time he tossed one of the torches in the air, only to catch it lazily seconds before it touched the table.

Laurent looked away after a while. The torches were casting shadows all over the place, and it was making his stomach twist. He looked around, telling himself he was not looking for anyone in particular, and his eyes caught on Aimeric’s wild mane for the second time that night. He was standing closer to Jord than he’d been before, but they were not touching. Jord’s eyes were on the pet, like most people’s, but Aimeric was staring at Auguste.

A thought began to stir in Laurent. Aimeric was—

The loud clapping distracted him. Auguste was laughing next to him, congratulating Berenger on his good taste and the pet on his skill. Everyone was clapping except for Laurent.

And Aimeric.

*

_Aesop sends his regards. He is still struggling with that riddle you sent to him last month. I keep telling him the answer is ‘octopus’ but he is just as stubborn as Aeneas sometimes…_

_It is ‘octopus’, isn’t it?_

*

Damianos’s rooms were the same as last time. He’d refused Auguste’s offer of sleeping in the room Theomedes had stayed in, claiming he liked this view better. When Auguste had told him this, Laurent had thought him a fool with poor taste. And then he’d remembered that Theomedes was dead and Damianos had never been the best when it came to dealing with grief.

Auguste went in first and held the door open for Laurent. Standing in the hallway, Laurent felt the same way he had hours before, outside of the dining hall while Lazar and Jord made way for him. It was unnerving, and there was little Laurent hated more than feeling out of his depth. He took a step forward and then another.

Until he collided with a wall.

“What—”

It turned out the wall had arms and they were touching Laurent, pulling him in for a hug. It also had a mouth, and it said, “You’re just as lanky as I remembered.”

Laurent struggled against him for a second before Damianos finally let him go. “You’re just as stupid.”

“It seems,” Auguste said, closing the door, “that I have lost the bet.”

“You have,” Damianos said. He was still holding onto Laurent’s shoulders. When he looked at Laurent again, his smile had turned into a bitten lip. “I am sorry about your friend.”

Laurent took a step back and away from Damianos. He kept his gaze on the horrible floral rug on the floor and told himself he should have seen this coming. Damianos: honor made man. Of course he would bring it up as soon as they were alone.

“It was a shame he could not come along,” Auguste said. “Perhaps next year.”

Laurent did not need to look at Damianos’s face to know he was surprised by Auguste’s words. “You have not told him,” he said, and Laurent felt his eyes on him like daggers. “Laurent—”

“Did something happen to Dion?” Auguste asked, already hovering. He was by Laurent’s side, watching him too. “Is he sick?”

“It’s not Dion,” Laurent said slowly. The flowers on the rug were not roses, as he had thought at first, but lilies. “It is— _was_ —Timon.”

Damianos started to speak. “It was an accident. He—”

“He drowned,” Laurent said flatly. He wanted to be done with this and, knowing Auguste, he would not let things rest until Laurent had told him everything. “It happened a few months back. Dion wrote to me about it.”

Auguste touched the back of his neck, gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry to hear that. You should have told me.”

Laurent tore his eyes away from the rug. Damianos was staring at him, a strange expression on his face that Laurent could not read very well. It had been too long since he’d had to, and it seemed like he was now out of practice.

He knew it would make him sound insensitive, but Laurent was done being polite. With an outstretched hand, he said, “Dion sent me a present. He said he’d given it to you.”

Damianos blinked, looking at Laurent’s splayed fingers. Whatever had been on his face seconds ago was now gone, the hinges of his jaw growing more pronounced by the second. “Of course,” he said, and his voice was rougher than usual.

After a minute of fumbling with the folds of his ridiculous chiton, Damianos finally found what he’d been looking for. His hand closed around it and, carelessly, he dumped it on Laurent’s hand as if he could not wait to be rid of it.

Perhaps the comment had made Laurent sound more than just a bit insensitive.

Auguste was asking Damianos something, but Laurent was no longer paying attention to them. He was looking at his gift, brushing his thumbs over the small seashells. They were all colorful, nothing like the ones Laurent remembered seeing at the beach years ago. Briefly, he wondered if Dion had dyed them.

It was a necklace.

*

_I miss you. Write back ~~soon~~ as soon as you can._

_All the best,_

_Dion_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! So, yeah. 4 years later and a LOT of stuff that happened off-screen because apparently, I'm the queen of not writing things explicitly? Let the pining, fluff, and awkward flirting begin!  
> Quick notes:  
> \- YOU HAVE TO CHECK OUT THESE DRAWINGS BY [JEN (the Auguste scene)](https://iwasgonegonegone.tumblr.com/post/621586923030478848/anyway-if-you-havent-read-when-the-sun-is-on) AND [SOPHIA (the lil fish scene)](https://mossygreen-art.tumblr.com/post/621559355765112832/i-might-never-stop-fangirling-over-when-the-sun-is) I cried a lot looking at them so like, go and cry and show them some love.  
> \- This was a bit of an introduction BUT what comes next mmm yes, give me that jealous damen and mutual pining.  
> \- Next chapter will be up on Friday night/Saturday morning! <3 I think it's safe to say that I'll be uploading once a week from now on.  
> \- If you have the time, check out [this cool article by Laura Rehwalt titled "Ancient Classical Roots of Psychology"](http://www.electrummagazine.com/2013/03/ancient-classical-roots-of-psychology/#:~:text=But%20the%20Ancient%20Greeks%20partly,formulating%20the%20foundations%20of%20psychology.&text=Plato%2C%20Aristotle's%20teacher%2C%20developed%20insights%20into%20the%20human%20mind.) I read it a couple of weeks ago when I was doing research for the "medieval psychologist" and I found it super interesting!
> 
> Thank you for reading and stay safe!


	16. Fourteen

**Fourteen**

Laurent lay down on Auguste’s bed, watching as his brother and Damianos poured wine and settled on the chairs Laurent had commissioned from Toutaine the previous winter. The one to the right had always been Laurent’s favorite—it was softer and more comfortable than the one Auguste liked to lounge on—but tonight Damianos had claimed it as his own, and so Laurent had been forced to take the bed.

Auguste kicked off his boots, immediately sitting cross-legged on the chair so he could rub his toes. “You were right,” he said to Laurent, examining the damage his new boots had done to his feet. “I should have broken them in last week.”

“I know,” Laurent said. “I’m always right.”

Trying his best to ignore them both, Laurent focused on Dion’s gift. The seashells were tiny in his hands, and for a moment he thought of sniffing them to see if they still carried the sea with them. If he licked them, would they taste like salt and sand or like the dyes Dion had used on them?

“You did not tell me you had talked to Laurent at the stables,” Auguste said, turning to Damianos. “I spent the whole morning looking for him.”

Damianos coughed. “It slipped my mind.”

“He thought I was a pet,” Laurent said lazily. He considered kicking off his boots as Auguste had done, but there was a small chance that the blisters he’d been enduring all night had already started to bleed. Getting blood on Auguste’s bedding was not an option. “Or a stable boy. I’m not sure which one offends me more.”

Auguste laughed, and the sound made Laurent stare. “Is that so?” he asked Damianos. “What did you say to him?”

Damianos was sipping his wine, not looking amused at all by Laurent’s comments. “I complimented the Prince’s mare.”

“I simply can’t understand how you didn’t realize it was him!”

“His voice,” Damianos said. His eyes fell on Laurent for a second before quickly setting on Auguste’s face again. “It’s different.”

Stiffly, Laurent answered, “Obviously.”

Laurent did not want to think of all the nights he’d lain awake fearing that moment in silence. It had happened gradually—the hoarse tone in the morning, a deepening in the middle of a sentence—until one day he could not remember what his voice had sounded like before. Auguste had found Laurent’s sulkiness over the whole matter amusing, and Laurent had not had the heart to explain to him why it pained him to shed yet another layer of childhood off.

“How was the journey here?” Auguste asked.

Damianos relaxed, his whole body deflating slightly and sinking further into the chair. “Long. I was considering poison by the time we had reached Delpha.”

“Delfeur,” Laurent corrected him.

“Was that your last stop before Marches?”

“Yes,” Damianos said. “We sailed near the shore of Ladehors, I believe, but did not go near the docks.” There was a pause during which Damianos took off his golden wreath and settled on the table next to Auguste’s crown. “There were…”

Auguste’s face was calm, but when Laurent lowered his eyes he found that his knuckles had gone white around the armrests. “There were…?”

“Nikandros spotted some statues. There was a lot of smoke. For a while we thought a village had burned down, but the closer we got the more obvious it became that people had purposefully set those… _things_ on fire.”

Laurent rolled his eyes. “They are not statues, you brute. They’re effigies.”

Auguste shot him a look that was supposed to silence him, but it only made Laurent want to go on with his explanation. “It’s a common practice in the south nowadays,” Auguste said, voice calm and still and wrong. “I am told they build and burn one each week.”

“Three on your birthday,” Laurent added. “According to the rumors, at least.”

Damianos frowned. “Is it some sort of religious rite? I was not aware that Veretians—”

“It’s a form of protest,” Auguste said. “They burn down a wooden man wearing a crown as they chant nonsense. I am sure you can see the appeal.”

By ‘nonsense’, Laurent knew Auguste meant _brotherfucker_ and _false king_. They had never discussed these things, and whenever Laurent had tried to get his brother to speak of them, Auguste would pet his hair like Laurent was still a child and send him on his way. But if Damianos continued to push…

“Oh,” Damianos said. The idiot. “I see.”

“How is your nephew?” Auguste asked, too obvious. Only a fool would miss how desperate he was to change the subject. “You never answered my letter asking after his health.”

Damianos gave Auguste a long look. “I’m afraid I don’t get the joke.”

“Joke? There is no joke.”

“The last letter I received from you was your invitation,” Damianos said slowly. “I was actually concerned to not have heard from you in such a long time. You always write back to me rather quickly.”

 _Like two distanced lovers_ , Laurent thought bitterly. Their letters to each other were long and full of stupid details Laurent despised hearing about. Oblivious to everything, Auguste would read them to him over breakfast sometimes, as though Laurent had asked him to.

In Laurent’s opinion, if Damianos had wanted him to know about the annoying kyroi or how great Jokaste’s son was at climbing and wrestling and archery, then he would have written to Laurent about it. Instead, all Damianos had written him over the span of four years were meager letters—one for each of Laurent’s birthdays—and so Laurent had not even bothered replying to them.

Auguste shrugged. “It must have gotten lost on the way there. I know I wrote it. But tell me, how is he?”

Laurent watched Damianos attentively, studying the changes in his expression. Damianos’s eyes became brighter, a smile tugging at his lips, and he seemed almost giddy with excitement. Given his massive size, it was a bizarre thing to witness. Laurent had expected annoyance from him, maybe even disdain, but of course he’d been wrong.

When had he ever been right about Damianos?

“He is well,” Damianos said, already smiling. He was so soft it made Laurent’s insides burn. “I wanted to bring him along but his mother would not allow it. She said he’s still too young to be away from her for so long.”

“Well,” Auguste said, “you know Jokaste is always welcome here. She could have come with you as well.”

Damianos shifted, eyes landing on Laurent yet again. They looked at each other for a while and said nothing. Auguste had talked to Jokaste less than four times in his life and he’d always been reluctant to believe the worst of people. He’d told Laurent more than once that Jokaste’s rudeness when she visited Arles with the Akielon royal family might have been because of Kastor. Laurent had given up explaining to him the difference between pretense and real character after that.

“I was surprised to learn Nikandros is here,” Laurent said. He pressed one of the seashells against his cheek, marveling silently at its coldness. “Who did you leave in charge?”

“Makedon,” Damianos said. “You have never met him, but he was a great friend of my father’s. He came down from the north to look after the capital’s affairs while I’m here.”

“Makedon,” Laurent echoed, trying to imitate the accent. “Is he a Kyros?”

“No, but he has a large army and he’s loyal to me. Ios is in good hands.”

Laurent put the necklace down on the bed and tried to unclip Aimeric’s stupid barrette. He was aware of Damianos and Auguste’s eyes on him and did his best to ignore them both. His braid was a mess anyway, there was no point in pretending otherwise.

“That’s—” Damianos paused, clearing his throat. “It’s a nice pin.”

Auguste’s laughter startled both Laurent and Damianos. “You sound like Prince Torveld,” he said, still cackling. Was he drunk? “He complimented Laurent on his hairpin at least twice, said pearls suit him.”

Laurent bristled at the comment. “The hairpin is hideous but I wear it perfectly. It’s not my fault Aimeric’s taste is—”

“That’s not why I’m laughing,” Auguste interrupted him. “Tell me, did he invite you somewhere already?”

Torveld had. _We could ride together one of these days_. “So what if he did? What’s so funny about it?”

But Auguste did not answer. He gave Laurent a soft smile—the one that said _later_ —and shook his head. “I, for one, think it’s a beautiful gift. Everyone seems to think so, Laurent. I don’t know why you keep insisting that it’s not.”

“I don’t like pearls,” Laurent said sharply.

“But you like seashells,” Damianos said before Auguste had had time to reply. “Surely you are aware that one pearl is worth a billion of those shells.”

“It’s not about that.”

“Then what is it about?”

“It’s about Aimeric trying to trick everyone into believing he’s not—” Laurent cut himself off. He snuck a look at Auguste’s face and saw that he was still calm but not laughing anymore. “Pearls make me look pale, that is all.”

Damianos laughed. He was too busy looking at Laurent to realize the change in Auguste’s expression. “Do not be offended by this, but you _are_ rather pale.”

 _And you are rather moronic_. Instead, Laurent asked, “What else did you bring, besides mead and wine?”

Blinking, Damianos said, “How do you know about that?”

“Prince Torveld mentioned it.”

“ _Griva_ ,” Auguste said when Damianos did not answer. “At least, that’s what I believe it is called. I do not think you’ll like it very much, Laurent.”

“Why not?”

Damianos put down his cup. “It’s too strong for you,” he said. “You do not even like wine, do you?”

Laurent sat up on the bed, glad he had not taken off his boots earlier. He was not exactly disappointed—in order to be disappointed, one had to expect something, and it had been a long time since Laurent had let himself expect anything from anyone—but he had no desire to waste his hours like this.

Turning eighteen had not really meant anything after all. _It was just another day to me_ , he’d told Torveld, not really believing his own words. As it turned out, it had been just another day to everyone else. Perhaps the old man had been right after all and there would be no newness about him, no change.

Here was Damianos, the King of Akielos, reminding him again that he was nothing but a child who disliked wine. Even Auguste did not seem keen to let him in on the joke.

“I am tired,” Laurent said, standing up. Both of his fists were clenched tightly—one around the barrette and the other around the necklace. “I’m going back to my rooms.”

Instead of saying good night like he was supposed to, Laurent simply slipped out of the room. He did not leave at once, tipping his head back on the closed door and listening closely to what was happening inside. He knew from experience that Auguste’s door was not as thick as his, and so it was easy to listen through it.

“He’s grown,” Damianos said, “but he’s still as prickly as before.”

"And he still hates Aimeric,” Auguste added. His voice was like a tired sigh. “Some things not even time can change, I suppose.”

Laurent stood there, pressed against the door until he was certain they had moved on to other topics. After another moment of holding his breath, he started making his way back to his own rooms. He told himself he was not disappointed by the reunion, but lying to himself was not as easy as it had been four years ago. Unfortunately.

*

The next morning Laurent also woke up before dawn broke, but this time he did not sneak into the stables. He lay in bed for a while, waiting for the first rays of sunlight to make their way into his room, and then started to dress.

He chose his clothes carefully, knowing exactly which shirt and jacket he wanted, and then avoiding the temptation to slip into the same boots he’d worn the night before. His feet were still sore and his ankles had already scabbed over in some places, which meant he should take things easy for a day or two. If the sore in his mouth had taught him anything, it was this.

Laurent seldom bothered to do the buttons of his shirt and jacket all the way up to his neck, especially not so early in the morning, but he did not want anyone to see what he was hiding underneath. The seashells had been cold at first when Laurent had slipped on the necklace, but they had warmed up nicely overnight, soaking up the heat from Laurent’s skin, and so Laurent decided against taking it off. This was not like wearing Aimeric’s barrette. This was for him only.

The man was awake, as Laurent knew he would be. He opened the door after Laurent had knocked twice, looking just as polished and refined as usual. As he let Laurent in, he did not ask him to state his business, did not even chide him for dropping by so early.

“Tea?”

“Which kind?” Laurent asked as he sat down where he always did. The map on the wall had gotten even uglier in the span of three days. “If it’s that disgusting black—”

“It’s chamomille,” the man said patiently. “Yes or no?”

 _No._ “Yes.”

When the steaming cup was set in front of him at the table, Laurent did not reach out for it. He kept his eyes on the map, waiting for the man to sit down as well so he could start talking.

“Is there chalis in this?”

“You know there isn’t.”

Laurent focused on the rolled-up cuffs of the man’s linen pants. Didn’t his ankles get cold? He thought of asking but decided the chalis conversation was long overdue. He said, “Why?”

“You know why.”

“There are other medicines we have not tried.”

The man tsked. He drank from his cup and then set it on the table without making a sound. “Such as?”

Laurent straightened in his seat. “I’ve been reading,” he said as slowly as his hammering heart allowed him. “There’s a Patran herb. It grows in the north, near Vask.”

Auguste’s books had come in handy after all. Laurent had spent the last few days thumbing through them, skipping over the historical details that he would have usually found interesting, and had focused on the agriculture and medicine bits. Vere’s pride was pets and wine, and Patras’s was physicians.

“That is not a herb, but a drug. There is a difference.”

“Most herbs are drugs,” Laurent replied. “Is chalis not a drug?”

“It is,” the man said, “which is why the King has forbidden me to give it to you. You know this, Laurent.”

“It’s good for sleep.”

“So is chamomile. I was not aware you were having trouble sleeping.”

Laurent picked up his cup and cradled it in his hands for a moment, enjoying the way it warmed his fingers. The tea was the color of honey and just as sweet. If there had been chalis in it, it would have smelled ten times sweeter. That was one of the only perks of the drug: its scent was more sugary than any sweet treat Laurent had ever sniffed.

“I sleep just fine,” he said. There was no point in lying about it. “You said we could try again.”

“That was before King Auguste forbade it.”

“So you’re just another one of his dogs, then?” Laurent asked. “He tells you to jump, you jump. He orders you to roll over and you do it without complaint.”

 _You’re just like Jord_ , Laurent almost said. The only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that he’d have to explain what that meant. If he started talking about Jord, he’d have to talk about Aimeric too, and it was too early to even think about that little—

“Your brother is the King.”

“Not _your_ king. You’re not Veretian. If you really wanted to, you could simply ignore his commands.”

“I live in his palace,” the man said calmly. “He keeps me fed, trusts my advice, and allows me to study. If I did as you say, I would be just like the man who served him before me.”

Laurent clutched the cup tighter. “Paschal is a good man.”

“Your brother does not seem to think so.” He uncrossed his legs. “Do you disagree with him on this?”

“Does it matter if I do?”

Laurent knew it didn’t. How many times had he asked Auguste to give Paschal another chance, to forget whatever feud was between them? And how many times had Auguste pursed his mouth and shook his head, telling Laurent that when a man fails one so terribly there is not forgetting to be done?

Something about the whole issue did not sit well with Laurent. When his brother had found out about Guion’s alliance to their uncle, he had executed him. He’d done the same to every courtier he’d tried for treason in the last four years until the court was so small there were no snakes and vipers to be worried about anymore. So why not do the same with Paschal? If he had betrayed Auguste’s trust… why not have him beheaded?

“Does your brother know how strongly you feel about this?”

“No,” Laurent said. And then, thinking it over, he added, “I do not feel _strongly_ about anything.”

“Then why does it bother you to hear me speak of Paschal?”

“Because you do not know him,” Laurent snapped. “He made a mistake when he sided with my uncle, but that does not mean he should pay for it for the rest of his life.”

The man hummed. It was one of the most annoying sounds Laurent had ever heard. “I see your brother is yet to speak to you about this matter. If you must know, I suggested long ago that he told you, but he’s obviously chosen to ignore my advice.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I asked you once about Paschal. You told me you were never particularly close to him.”

“That’s because I wasn’t.”

“Then why do you care so much about the way your brother treats him? ‘ _He made a mistake_ ’. That’s a strange way to describe treason.”

Laurent looked down at his cup again. The steam was gone and the tea was cold when he sipped it. Coming here so early—before his brain had had time to properly wake up, before breakfast—had been a mistake.

“I do not know,” Laurent said. And then, unable to stop himself, “Can treason never be forgiven?”

The man crossed his legs. “Are we still speaking of Paschal?”

They weren’t.

Laurent had come here to delay having to face Auguste and Damianos. He should have picked the stables, but a small part of him was hesitant to hide there. It was not that he was afraid anyone would go looking for him, but rather that he knew they wouldn’t. There was a difference between knowing Jord and Aimeric were fucking, and another thing entirely to actually witness it.

He should have known coming here today, so soon after last time, would cost him greatly. The man was not as foolish as Laurent had always wanted him to be and he noticed all the little things, no matter how hard Laurent tried to hide them away. Of course they were not talking about Paschal.

“My brother forgave Aimeric,” Laurent said.

“So this is about Aimeric?”

“Yes,” Laurent lied. “Who else would it be about?”

The man stared at him for a long time. “Aimeric did not betray your brother. His father did. Should a child pay for the sins of his family?”

"But let’s pretend he did,” Laurent insisted. His fingers had gone numb around the cup, but he held onto it fiercely. “Do you think Auguste would have killed him if Aimeric had been a traitor?”

“Do you think he should have?” He waited for an answer, but Laurent’s tongue was a dead weight in his mouth. “This is not about Aimeric,” he said, and this time it was not a question. “Why hide behind another’s name? A truthful man gets more answers than a false one.”

 _But I am not a man_. Laurent discarded the thought quickly. It was the sort of thing a child would say, not an eighteen-year-old. “You said Auguste had not told me things about Paschal. I want to know what they are.”

“Ask your brother, then. If he thinks you ought to know them, he will tell you.”

“He won’t.”

Irritatingly calm, the man asked, “And why do you think that is?”

“Because he doesn’t trust me,” Laurent said. He was starting to think that there was something in his tea after all, except it was not chalis. His tongue kept spasming as though the words were tiny needles prickling it from all angles. “And why would he? I’m just—I did—I’m like Paschal.”

“In what way?”

Laurent put the cup down, cold tea sloshing over the edge. His fingers felt sticky with it, but Laurent did not wipe them on his clothes. He simply stared at them, wishing the tea had been scalding hot so he would have had something else to focus on besides this conversation.

“You know what I mean,” he gritted out.

“Yes,” the man replied, “but I want to hear you say it.”

But Laurent could not bring himself to do it. Saying it out loud would make it real—or at least, much more real than it was inside Laurent’s head—and so it could not be done. Words would make it sound wrong like they always did, and Laurent doubted he would be able to take it back once it was out of his mouth. Thoughts, however, could not be read.

He stood. “I have matters to attend to. If you’ll excuse me.”

When the man spoke again, Laurent’s hand had already found the doorknob. “You always do this. Every time. Do you not get tired of running away?”

Laurent ignored him. He twisted the doorknob and stepped out of the room, telling himself that running away from things was not only an acceptable battle strategy but a smart one too. There was even a saying about it: He who fights and runs lives to fight another day.

And Laurent planned on living a very long life.

*

The walk back to his rooms was quiet and undisturbed. There were pets lounging lazily against the walls, making doe eyes at the courtiers who passed by, but they straightened and bowed their heads when they caught sight of Laurent. If he’d had a whip, he would have flogged most of them to death.

There was someone waiting outside his door. Laurent was almost disappointed that the man was not Jord; he was in the mood to make someone squirm.

“Laurent,” Torveld said in a breathy voice. He met Laurent in the middle of the hall, moving away from the door with only three long strides. “I was wondering if you’d like to go riding with me today.”

“No,” Laurent said and his voice was like a lash, cutting through the air and Torveld’s smile at the same time. Then he remembered Auguste’s laughter the night before and felt something inside him crack open, venom threatening to spill out of him. This time, he’d be so polite there would be no room for jokes. “I mean… I am rather tired. Perhaps we could do something else?”

Torveld smiled again, hesitant. “Of course. As you wish. What would you like to do?”

“I could show you the gardens if you’d like. There aren’t flowers like the ones here anywhere else.”

Torveld complied easily enough. He walked next to Laurent to the other side of the palace, right where the path to the gardens began. His shoulder brushed against Laurent’s occasionally, but Laurent forced himself to stay put. This was being polite. This was entertaining Auguste’s guests and building strong alliances.

This was also a wonderful distraction.

It was warm under the sun, but not uncomfortably so. Tilting his head up, Laurent watched a cluster of grey clouds and thought, for a split second, that he could smell the rain coming. It was a stupid thought and so he paid it no mind, telling himself that such skill was not sorcery, as he’d once thought, but merely a children’s game. No one could smell a storm.

The gardens had been restyled a couple of weeks ago, around the time Auguste had started sending out the invitations. Some flowers were still far from blooming completely, but those that had done so in time were beautiful enough that even Laurent was unable to deny their beauty.

“You like flowers,” Torveld said, the back of his hand pressing against Laurent’s as they walked. It was warm and not completely unpleasant, but Laurent pulled away from the touch anyways. “Do you have a favorite kind?”

“Orchids,” Laurent said, lying. Was there a flower he hated more? He made himself smile, thinking of that puppet show in the city he had seen with his mother as a child. It felt as though someone was pulling on his strings—walk, smile, nod. _Be polite._ “Do you like Arles?”

“Yes, it’s a beautiful place.” Torveld watched him sit down by the fountain. “It’s full of beautiful people, too.”

“Ah, yes. The pets are…” _Disgusting_. “Pretty.”

Torveld laughed as if surprised. “I was not talking about the pets, Laurent.”

Laurent stroked the water in the fountain with his fingertips. It was cold and inviting, and Laurent’s first thought was of Aimeric. If he closed his eyes and focused enough, he could remember the way Aimeric’s body had felt under him, writhing like a caught fish. Had the water been this cold, back then? Not cold enough, Laurent decided, or else Aimeric would have died of lung disease or hypothermia.

Such a shame.

“—as colorful,” Torveld was saying when Laurent came back from the past. “There is a royal family in Patras with orchids as their sigil.”

“Oh,” Laurent said, feigning interest. “Is there really?”

Sitting down next to Laurent, Torveld went on and on about the orchids and their meaning and how refined Laurent’s taste was for liking them so much. Strangers were so easily swayed, Laurent almost took no pleasure in fooling them. Where was the challenge in being liked, when the other person only knew of him what he chose to reveal?

“What do you think?”

Laurent’s hand stilled over the water at the question. What had they even been talking about? “I’m not sure,” he said because it was the safest answer. “What do _you_ think?”

“I think I’d be delighted to have you as a guest,” Torveld said. His smile was intact, which should have felt reassuring but only made Laurent more nervous. “If your brother allowed it, of course.”

Auguste would not.

“Of course.”

“Patras is very similar to Akielos in many ways,” Torveld said as if that was _the_ selling point. “And during spring, there are—”

A loud giggle interrupted Torveld. Laurent turned his head very slowly towards the sound, eyes narrowed to slits because of the sun, and spotted the mess of brown curls. It was Aimeric, tugging at Jord’s hand like a child.

The smile on Jord’s face was small, but Laurent had grown accustomed to seeing it widen whenever Aimeric did something particularly stupid, and this time was no different. When Aimeric plucked a hyacinth and handed it to him, the corners of Jord’s mouth stretched on and on to the point where Laurent feared for his skin.

Standing up as fast as he could, Laurent offered Torveld a smile of his own. “Have you seen the training arena?” he asked, head whirring. It was the only place he could think of where Aimeric would never follow. “It is my brother’s pride and joy.”

“I can’t say I have,” Torveld said, on his feet once more. He was watching Jord and Aimeric. “Is he a pet?”

Laurent, already three steps away from the fountain, stopped. “Jord?”

“Jord is your brother’s guard, is he not? I meant the other one.”

“Yes,” Laurent said instantly. “The other one is a pet.”

With only two long strides Torveld was by his side again, this time offering Laurent his right arm to hold onto as they walked. Laurent looked down at it, trying to remember what he’d read about Patran customs, but before he’d had time to think things through Aimeric let out another laugh.

Laurent’s fingers curled around Torveld’s forearm, pulling him away from the gardens. If his iron grip was hurting Torveld, he did not say anything about it. Laurent did not stop digging his fingers into the flesh until they were far away from Aimeric’s stupid happiness, now closer to the arena than before. By the time he was ready to let go of Torveld’s arm, Torveld put his hand over Laurent’s, keeping it in place.

“Do you train?” he asked. They were walking once more. “I’ve heard that your brother is yet to be defeated with a sword. If you have him as a tutor—”

“I don’t,” Laurent said.

“Which one is it, then? You don’t train or you don’t have him as a tutor?”

“I have other interests.”

The arena was swarming with people. To the left, a group of Akielon guards was wrestling in front of quite an audience. From where he was standing with Torveld, at the entrance, Laurent could not see whether or not they were wearing any clothes. And then, to the right, the real show was taking place.

A bigger crowd than the one watching the Akielons was gathered there, the sound of steel clashing against steel becoming louder the closer Laurent and Torveld got. Even before they had elbowed their way to the front line, Laurent already knew what the fuss was all about.

In his hand, Auguste’s sword looked anything but heavy. He moved with such ease it was hard to imagine him in any other situation, as though he’d been born with his fingers around the hilt of a blade. Free of his constricting doublet, Auguste launched forward and backward again, almost like he was dancing instead of trying to take his opponent down. His golden hair was darkened by sweat and sticking to his forehead, which made Laurent wonder exactly how long this fight had been going on for.

“Yield,” Auguste said, laughing. “I promise I will not mock you for it.”

Damianos smiled calmly, a stark contrast to the way he brought down his sword. “Never.”

Laurent watched his movements, eyes catching on the twitching of Damianos’s thighs where the muscles were most likely aching from the strain. He was dark where Auguste was light, and when he moved Laurent forgot he wanted him to lose. Damianos did not look like he was dancing, but there was still grace in his stance. He was drenched in sweat too, and Laurent found himself watching a drop trickle down his temple, down his cheek, and to the ground.

It happened fast. One second Auguste was lunging forward, sword over his head, and the next Damianos had knocked him to the ground on his back, where he lay breathing so hard it looked like it hurt.

For a moment, no one spoke. Laurent blinked, unable to tear his eyes away from Auguste sprawled on the ground, hair dirty with sawdust and sweat. The last time he’d seen his brother like this a spear had been sticking out from his chest, covered in blood.

Damianos offered Auguste a hand. His sword was forgotten on the ground. “Again?”

Auguste sat up. His smile was not embarrassed, not even shy. He’d lost to an Akielon, something that a few years back would have been the greatest shame, and he’d gone down in front of all these people. Like vultures, they were waiting in silence, savoring every second of Auguste’s defeat.

But when had his brother known shame?

“No,” he said. “You have beaten me fairly.”

They both laughed as Damianos hauled him up by the hand, patting each other on the back and accepting the crowd’s praises with a nod or two.

Laurent thought of disappearing, of slithering his way out of everyone’s sight, but then he realized he was still holding onto Torveld’s arm. If he were to go, Torveld would most likely follow him. It’d be impolite to tell him to stay put when it had been Laurent who dragged him all the way here in the first place.

Auguste had dried himself off with a white piece of cloth and slung it over his shoulder. He’d turned away from the courtiers who were giving him their condolences on the defeat, something very unlike him.

And Laurent wanted to be polite, especially now that Auguste’s eyes were on him. _See_ , he wanted to say, _I can keep up. I can be nice._ There was nothing here to laugh at.

The muscles under his fingertips tensed. “Your Majesty,” Torveld said.

Auguste ignored him. His eyes kept flickering to Laurent’s hand. “I missed you at breakfast.”

“I was not hungry,” Laurent said.

“Is that so? You were not in your rooms either.”

“Maybe Jord was too busy to check properly.”

Auguste’s scowl was now impossible to miss. “I did not send Jord. I went to find you myself.” He continued to ignore a courtier’s comment on the sawdust that was clinging to the back of his pants. “So, where were you?”

“I woke up early,” Laurent said, feeling like he ought to be careful with his answer without knowing exactly why. At his hesitancy, Auguste only grimaced further. “I went to see… someone.”

Damianos was approaching them. He too had dried himself off, but unlike Auguste his chest was bare. His chiton had come undone at the shoulder—perhaps he’d undone it himself—and was now hugging his waist like a skirt. When he’d made it to Auguste’s side, his eyes also flickered to Laurent’s hand on Torveld’s arm.

“A word,” Auguste said in a low voice, this time to Torveld. “I’d like to have a word with my brother. Excuse us for a moment.”

Laurent let go of Torveld just in time for Auguste to yank him away from the crowd by the elbow. Laurent did not struggle; this was humiliating enough. He let himself be herded towards the entrance and into the hall.

Auguste’s hold on his elbow tightened for a second and then loosened enough for Laurent to break free. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Laurent huffed. “You told me to be polite to your guests. I was only doing as you commanded me to.”

“Laurent,” Auguste said, rubbing his face with both hands. His mouth was a tight line, lips pressed into absolute whiteness. “Did you sleep in your rooms last night?”

“Excuse me?”

“When you left last night, did you go back to your rooms or did you go somewhere else?”

Frowning, Laurent said, “Where else would I have gone? I slept in my bed and I missed breakfast because I went to talk to your beloved physician.” He watched Auguste’s shoulders drop. “Where did you think I’d slept?”

“That’s good,” Auguste said. He was even attempting to smile. “It _is_ good that you went to see him, is it not? I was—”

“Stop trying to change the subject.”

“It’s nothing. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“Tell me.”

Auguste let out a long sigh. “What was I supposed to think? You walked in with your arm in his and I had not been able to find you all morning. I thought—” He cut himself off, mouth almost disappearing into his wild beard. “Can you blame me?”

Very slowly, Laurent said, “I don’t understand.”

A dark-haired pet walked past them. When he noticed who they were, he froze and then took a tentative step towards Auguste. Laurent thought of kicking him in the groin—the pet was only wearing a blue sort of loincloth—but before he could even suck in a breath and move, Auguste was dismissing the young man with a wave of his hand.

The sway of the pet’s hips as he walked away made something in Laurent snap.

“You thought,” he said as realization dawned on him like icy water being poured over his head, “that I had spent the night in Torveld’s rooms.”

“Laurent—”

“Is that what you think of me?”

Auguste went to grab his elbow again, but Laurent moved away. “Last night at the feast,” Auguste said, holding himself very still. “You must have noticed it. Even Damianos—”

“Noticed what, exactly?”

_That he was polite to me? That he was interested in what I had to say? That he did not leave me hanging like the two of you did?_

But Auguste surprised him by saying, “That he wants you, Laurent.”

Laurent blinked once, twice, said, “He _what_?”

“You can’t have missed the way he looks at you,” Auguste said. When Laurent did not say he had, he added, “I know you are used to this sort of attention, but Prince Torveld’s intentions are not—I do not think he simply wants to—”

“So you thought I had spread for him last night? Because he wants me?”

“There’s no need to be crass, Laurent. I’ve obviously made a mistake.”

“Did you think I’d bed him the same day I met him? Like one of those filthy pets you have brought to the palace would?”

“That’s enough,” Auguste said in the voice he used to command servants around.

“ _Enough_?” Laurent snapped. He felt as though someone had sliced him open, from his belly button to the start of his throat, and all his spite was pouring out of him like blood. “I’m speaking the truth. Will you have him flogged too, simply for ogling me? You wish you could, I’m sure, but he’s not some lowborn guard like Benoît.”

“You know I didn’t—”

“You didn’t want to, but you did it anyway. Maybe I should have gone to Torveld last night. Maybe I should have—”

“Laurent.”

“—let him fuck me. You’d have the alliance with Patras you so desperately want without having to marry one of King Torgeir’s daughters.

“You know why I have to marry,” Auguste said. “You know what they—”

But Laurent ignored him. “Say the word, brother, and I’ll bend over for him. Although perhaps—”

“I said _enough_.”

“—he’d enjoy it more if I kneeled and took him in my—”

The slap was neither unwanted nor particularly painful, but it was unexpected. Laurent’s face was turned to the side by its force, and his cheek felt like it had caught on fire. The pain died down quickly, leaving behind only the faintest of tinglings, but when Laurent touched his cheekbone it came back as though his finger was made of hot iron.

Laurent’s head cleared instantly. If there had been fog clouding his thoughts before, it was now long gone. Even his vision seemed sharper, more focused. He thought: _it has been so long I had almost forgotten what this felt like_.

Auguste was not looking at him, but at his own hand like he could not believe he’d struck Laurent with those fingers and that palm. They were pink, blushing as if all of Auguste’s blood had left his face and rushed to his hand.

“I—”

“It’s all right,” Laurent said easily enough. He was not crying, which was always a good sign when it came to these things. He was calm, collected.

He’d gone too far.

Auguste looked even more horrified at those words. “I should not have laid hands on you.”

“It was provoked.” There was a pause. For a long moment, Laurent thought Auguste was going to leave. “And it was only one hand, I believe.”

“I’m sorry,” Auguste said. And then again, “I’m so sorry, I’m—” He reached out for Laurent but stopped when he realized he was doing it.

Laurent looked around to see if there was anyone watching them. When he confirmed that there was no one around, he stepped closer to Auguste and, ignoring his brother’s sweaty and damp clothes, tried to hug him by the waist.

Auguste stopped him, placing his hands on Laurent’s shoulders to prevent him from coming closer.

“I’m sorry,” Auguste kept saying. Laurent was not sure what he was apologizing for: the slap or the blatant refusal of the hug. “I shouldn’t have—I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Laurent repeated. It really was. “I’m sorry too.”

“Don’t apologize to me for this, Laurent. If you do I think I’ll be sick.”

Laurent scrunched his nose and said, “Don’t. You already smell awful and I’d rather not get vomit in my hair.”

Auguste opened his mouth, probably to apologize again, and was cut off by the flood of people invading the hall. He let go of Laurent’s shoulders as though they were made of hot coal. Courtiers and Akielon guards walked past them, abandoning the training arena. Their voices were loud and they made no attempt to stifle their laughter. Laurent caught glimpses of conversations in both Veretian— _he lost, he lost to the other king_ —and Akielon— _it was his bent knee that did him in_.

Once the hall was deserted again, Auguste said, “You know we cannot do this here.”

“You cannot hug me in public,” Laurent said slowly, “but you can slap me.”

Auguste’s face twisted with pain. “I’m sorry. I never—I only wanted you to stop.”

“You succeded.”

“Laurent,” he started. His mouth set in a hard, straight line. Suddenly, he blurted out, “Promise me you won’t continue with this.”

“With what?”

“If you’re only enduring his company because of me, because you think that’s what I want, you need not indulge him a second longer.”

Ah, Torveld. Laurent had almost forgotten about him. “I meant what I said. If…” He looked at the ground, telling himself he would not mind if Auguste agreed with him on this. “If you think it’ll be beneficial, I’ll do it. It’d be a strong alliance and he…” Laurent trailed off. _He would not be my first._ “There are worse options. I’m not a child anymore, I should be helping you more than I am.”

“I know you’re not a child,” Auguste said gently. “But there are other ways you can help me. This is not one of them.”

“You claim to know I’m not some useless babe, and yet you don’t trust me with anything.”

“Of course I trust you.”

“You don’t,” Laurent argued. It was getting harder to keep his voice low. “You keep things from me.”

Auguste did not deny it.

“Why didn’t you execute Paschal?” Laurent asked, knowing perfectly well that a hall was not the place to have this conversation but caring very little about it. The questions were seeping through his teeth, unstoppable. “Why did you not send Aimeric back to Fortaine? Why—”

“All right,” Auguste said, cutting through Laurent’s inquisition. There was a sharp edge to his voice. “Tonight, after the feast, I’ll try my best to explain. Now’s not the time to speak of this, nor the place.”

“Promise me,” Laurent said. He did not care if he sounded like he was begging. “Promise me you won’t—”

“I promise.” Auguste closed his eyes for a second. “We should go back now. You know we’re not supposed to do this.”

Laurent nodded, looking away from his brother’s face. He knew it had been irresponsible to try and hug Auguste like that, but he could not bring himself to regret it. Laurent even appreciated the slap he’d endured, for that was the only reason Auguste had grabbed him by the shoulders.

“I’ll speak to Torveld,” Auguste told him as they were making their way back to the arena. His voice was barely a whisper, words meant only for Laurent’s ears. “He should know better than to approach you like this.”

The urge to roll his eyes and protest was there, squirming inside him, but Laurent ignored it. He did not feel like arguing with Auguste over this, not again. Auguste would look like a jester when Torveld explained he had not been making any advances at Laurent, and Laurent thought that his brother’s embarrassment when he realized his mistake would be a fit punishment for his earlier blow.

The arena was empty except for Torveld and Damianos, both of them pretending the other did not exist. Torveld was gazing up at the sky, tracing the outlines of the clouds with his eyes, whereas Damianos was stretching, his chiton once again covering his chest. Laurent tried his best not to be disappointed by this, telling himself there would be plenty of opportunities to make fun of Damianos’s clothes.

“Prince Torveld,” Auguste called. “Do you care to come with me for a moment?”

Torveld nodded. He did not look intimidated by Auguste’s words, and so Laurent did not worry about him. Before following Auguste out of the arena, Torveld stopped at the entrance and gave Laurent a smile and despite his brother’s command to stop playing nice, Laurent found himself returning it with one of his own.

It took Laurent a second too long to realize he had been left alone with Damianos.

“Where’s your pet?” he asked, circling the spot Auguste and Damianos had been dueling in. “I am yet to see him.”

Damianos paused mid-stretch, one leg bent at the knee. “Nikandros is busy.”

“Doing what?”

“He’s…” Damianos trailed off. He held Laurent’s gaze. “We had a bit of a disagreement last night.”

Laurent paused. He had not been expecting Damianos to answer his question, let alone explain anything regarding Nikandros’s absence. It was easy for Laurent to relax when he remembered Damianos was like this with everyone, that he’d always had a thing for honesty. It seemed like being crowned King of Akielos had not changed that.

Feeling bold, Laurent decided to ask another question. “What was the disagreement about?”

“He was concerned about me, that is all. But I made it clear he had no reason to be.”

“How reassuring of you.”

The sunlight did not reach the part of the arena where they were standing, and Laurent felt the absence of it like an ache. He should have stayed in the gardens with Torveld. After all, wasn’t Laurent the best when it came to ignoring Aimeric? He’d gone almost a full year pretending like the idiot did not exist, not even bothering to reply when Aimeric addressed him directly. The gardens were warm and there was no sawdust coating every surface. He should have—

“Your cheek is red,” Damianos said.

Laurent blinked. He had not seen Damianos move closer. “I blush easily.”

“One cheek at a time?”

“Auguste and I had a bit of a disagreement.”

Damianos frowned. He’d frowned so often in Ios, this Laurent remembered. The crease between his eyebrows, the tautness of his mouth. His whole face spoke for him now, just as it had back then.

“I was being dishonorable,” Laurent went on. Why, he wondered, was he bothering to explain this to Damianos? What did it matter what he thought? Trying to change the subject, Laurent said, “How long did you practice to take my brother down?”

“Years.” His frown only deepened, twisting his features. Laurent should have known better than to think he’d be so easily distracted. “Did he hit you?”

Laurent ignored him. “Luck was on your side today, that’s all. You wouldn’t have been able to beat him otherwise.”

“I beat him once. At Marlas.”

“How?”

Damianos was standing so close Laurent could almost smell him, a mixture of Akielon cotton and sweat that was no entirely unpleasant. If forced to under torture, perhaps Laurent could even admit Damianos was not disgustingly hideous.

“We dueled,” Damianos said. “When my sword slipped from my hand, he gave me time to pick it up.”

“So, in essence, he let you win.”

Damianos was silent for a minute. He’d given up all pretense of stretching and was standing in front of Laurent, which made holding his gaze a particularly hard task for Laurent. Damianos had grown even taller since the days they had both shared in Akielos, and in order for Laurent to study his face, he had to crane his neck uncomfortably.

“You haven’t grown that much,” Damianos commented. He was trying to jest, but his voice sounded strange. Strained. “You’re still… a dwarf. With longer hair.”

Laurent thought the bit about his hair was strange but did not point it out. “I’m almost as tall as Auguste.”

“That is not saying much.”

“It is,” Laurent said. “Your height is abnormal. It prevents you from understanding not everyone around you is a dwarf.”

“Not everyone,” Damianos said. “Just you.”

Laurent tilted his head to the side. “In fact, I think if you were not a foot taller than me, or quite so broad across the shoulders, you’d be smarter.”

“It’s considerably less than a foot.”

“Is it?”

Damianos let out a shaky laugh. “How would that make me smarter? Not all dwarves are geniuses.”

“I see you have met plenty,” Laurent said placidly. “If you were smaller, you’d have to use your brain more instead of relying on your size to scare off your opponents.”

“You’re small. How do _you_ scare off your opponents?”

“I use my wit to disarm them.”

“Does it work every time?”

“So far it has.”

Damianos smiled, and a dimple appeared on his cheek. It was there only for a second, but Laurent still felt the inexplicable urge to poke it with his finger. “If it ever doesn’t, it’s a good thing you’re also an archer.”

Auguste must have told him in one of his letters, Laurent realized. “I don’t need an arrow to break a man.”

“I know,” Damianos said. “That much is obvious.”

“Besides, an arrow won’t do any damage to you. It’d take at least five to subdue you.”

“Only five? I take that as an offense.”

Laurent was opening his mouth to speak when Damianos’s fingertips on his cheek startled him. They were cold and clammy against Laurent’s hot skin, still flushed from the slap. The touch only lasted for a second, if not less, and then Damianos retrieved his hand.

“It won’t bruise.”

“I know,” Laurent said without thinking. In a hurry, he added, “And don’t touch me again. Your hands are filthy.”

Damianos laughed. “I’d almost forgotten how squeamish you are. It’s just sawdust and sweat, Laurent. You won’t die.”

“Well,” Laurent said, “I don’t know where your hands have been, do I? How many pets did you fuck last night? As you must have noticed by now, my brother’s selection is… varied.”

“None.”

“Oh. Did you bring your own then?”

“No,” Damianos said slowly. “I slept alone.”

That… was not what Laurent had been expecting. “Of course,” he said, berating himself for having forgotten about it, “you prefer women. Auguste is accommodating, but even he draws the line there.”

“No, I—” Damianos stopped. He looked surprised. “It’s not that.”

Laurent could not help but laugh. It soon turned bitter. “I was not aware of your new exotic tastes. Perhaps you should ask my brother’s friend, Berenger, for a night with his pet. You know, in Patras, there is a saying about redheads that—”

“I do not like redheads.”

Blinking, Laurent said, “This is not _any_ redhead. He’s a whore who can do fire tricks.” He watched Damianos, the way he’d tried to tame his expression into something else when Laurent said the word ‘whore’. “What is it? Are you surprised I can curse? I’m eighteen, not twelve.”

“I know that,” Damianos said. “Believe me, it is not easy to forget.”

“Then why—”

There was a cough. Both Damianos and Laurent turned their heads to the entrance, startled into taking one step back each. Laurent had been expecting to find Auguste, maybe even Torveld, and was quite surprised when he saw it was Nikandros.

Nikandros’s hair was braided, but it was now shorter than Laurent’s. His chiton was cleaner than the one Damianos was wearing, and his sandals looked new. If he’d been wearing a wreath, Laurent might have forgotten he was only a Kyros.

“Exalted,” he said. “I heard of your victory against King Auguste.”

“My brother let him win.”

Nikandros did not smile. “Is that so?”

“I am sorry you missed the duel,” Laurent continued. He did not like the awkward silence that had fallen upon them. Suddenly, the arena seemed too small to hold the three of them. “If you had been there, you could have seen for yourself how Auguste dropped his sword at the last second.”

“Yes,” Damianos said slowly. “It was impressive. Auguste fought well.”

Laurent frowned at this. He had not wanted Damianos to play along.

“And where is King Auguste now?” Nikandros asked Damianos. He had barely looked at Laurent, which should not have stung as much as it did. “It has been some time since the duel ended.”

“He left mere minutes ago to speak to Prince Torveld,” Damianos said. Was it anger Laurent heard in his voice? “We should leave now, too, or else we’ll miss lunch.”

Nikandros nodded once and stayed put as if waiting for something. It seemed like he wanted to personally escort Damianos out of the arena, and Laurent found the idea insulting. Did Nikandros think Laurent would try to do what, exactly? There were no arrows in sight, not even a blade, and Laurent’s size was a disadvantage Nikandros could not have overlooked. If Laurent tried anything—although why Nikandros thought Laurent would try to attack Damianos was beyond him—then Damianos would be able to stop him easily.

Or perhaps their little disagreement had not been settled and Nikandros wanted a word with Damianos, in private.

Laurent decided that either way it was not his problem what these two idiots did with their time. If they wanted to spend the rest of the day in the arena, standing in silence, then Laurent would gladly let them. They were his guests, after all, and Laurent was nothing if not an accommodating host.

“I will see you at the dining hall,” Laurent said.

He waited a moment for their reply and when it did not come Laurent made his way out, careful to avoid touching Nikandros as he walked past him. Once in the hall, a few steps away from where he and Auguste had argued earlier, Laurent could hear them talking in angry, fast Akielon, but he was too far way already to make out the words.

Wanting to stand in the gardens and under the midday sun for a minute, Laurent headed west instead of going straight into the dining hall. He had almost made it to his favorite spot—the one where no orchids grew, far away from the water fountain—when he saw Aimeric, who was standing straight-backed in front of Orlant’s memorial plaque. Laurent almost snorted. But then he saw that Jord was standing next to Aimeric.

Laurent stayed silent, not announcing his presence, and watched them.

Jord put his hand on Aimeric’s back. “He was a good man,” he said.

“I don’t think I ever talked to him,” Aimeric said. Then, more cautiously, “Were you upset when he died?”

“Yes, but at the time I thought he’d betrayed the King. We all did. I only started grieving him properly when the truth came out.”

“Why?” Aimeric asked. He was not looking at the plaque any longer but at Jord’s face, studying it.

“In my mind, he was a traitor. He could have killed King Auguste. Or the Prince. He could have killed you, had you been standing in his way.”

“A traitor,” Aimeric echoed. His voice sounded strangely hollow, and Laurent took pleasure in imagining exactly who Aimeric was thinking of. It was not long before that pleasure turned to cinders inside him. “He was your friend.”

Jord murmured something that was too soft to hear, and Aimeric let himself be folded into Jord’s arms. They stayed that way for a long moment, and Laurent thought to himself that it was the ugliest sight he had ever seen.

After a while, Aimeric’s hands slid into Jord’s hair, and Laurent heard him say, “Kiss me. Please. I want—”

But Laurent did not stay around to hear the rest. He stepped away, his back turned to them, and began the long walk to the dining hall. In his mind, the words Auguste had picked for the plaque were loud enough to drown out all the other sounds—the pets and their giggles, the guard’s whistles, the foreign languages.

_Truth and honor shall prevail._

*

A hunting trip had been organized over lunch. It was the sort of thing pompous men liked: to kill a beast and mount its head on the wall. Kings, as Laurent knew far too well, were men, and not at all immune to the extravagances of flesh. If anything, they were more prone to them.

“We’ll ride to Chastillon, if the weather allows it,” Auguste told him, dismissing with his hand the stable boy who was trying to help him onto his saddle. “It will be fun, Laurent. You ought to come.”

“I’d rather not,” Laurent said. The mention of that place was enough to make him feel uneasy. “Try and win this time. It’d be a shame if Damianos beat you at this too.”

Auguste tilted his head back and laughed. It was so easy for him that Laurent felt envy flare up inside him for a second. It was only a beat, and Laurent made sure to smother it to death before they had left the stables.

Everyone was waiting at the entrance, most of the hunting party already mounting their horses. Damianos’s stallion stood out from the rest, not only because of his size but because of the color of his pelt. It was the only black horse.

Laurent was about to scratch the ears of his brother’s horse when a movement to his right distracted him. A rider was crossing the gates, his horse the color of hay, but it was no one Laurent had ever seen before.

Auguste’s guards tried to stop him, but they were only men on their feet and the man’s horse sidestepped them easily. He was still a few meters away from the party when he yanked at his reins and forced the horse to come to a halt.

The reins were red and so was the banner that laid across the horse’s back, attached to the saddle. He made a sign with his hand—a herald’s gesture.

Auguste was not wearing his crown, but his fair coloring had always been enough to identify him.

“The King of Vere sends a message,” the herald said, and his voice carried so everyone gathered could hear. With an impassive face, he continued, “The pretender king has been accused of treason, not only against the realm but against his family, and to that charge, it has now been added that of murder. He is therefore required to attend his trial, which will take place where the north meets the south, at the border of Barbin. Any authority he has acquired by his birthright over the lands of Vere is now void. If he decides to dismiss this order, there will be war. So says the King.”

There was only silence. Laurent’s ears buzzed as if his head was full of bees. He tried to turn his head to look at Auguste, who was still on his horse, but he could not. There seemed to be no bones in his body, no joints. Whatever was holding him upright would disappear at any moment, dropping him to the ground like a forgotten puppet.

“But I am King of Vere,” Auguste said, and his voice carried too. “What murder have I committed? I will not be ordered around like a slave. Speak the name of the man who spreads such lies about me and profanes my title.”

 _Do not_ , Laurent wanted to say, _do not say it out loud._

“The King,” the herald said, “your uncle.”

There were gasps and whispers.

“My uncle insults his family,” Auguste said. Had Laurent ever heard him speak like this before? “He uses a title that has been passed to me by my father. Should I drop dead right this instant, he still would not be the King of Vere, but merely the Regent. Do you think I will let this insult against me and my brother stand?”

“The King is a man of honor. He has chosen not to turn a blind eye to your crimes and transgressions. He offers you one chance for an honest trial. If you wish to defend yourself and what remains of your integrity, you will meet him at the border two weeks hence. There you may try to break free of the following charges.” The herald paused as if trying to remember a long list, then said, “Patricide, matricide, treason, and incest.”

Laurent leaned against his brother’s horse and tried, for the first time years, to drift away. Irrationally, he thought this would not be happening if he had stayed with his mare in the stables.

“The King wishes you to know he has proof against you, for all the crimes before mentioned.”

 _For all the crimes_. Laurent forced himself to not react.

“His proof is as false as his claim to the throne. I will meet him at the border, and by the end of this mock trial he has invited me to attend, I will have his head on a spike. That is my only message to him.”

The herald nodded once and gave his reins a sharp yank, commanding his horse to turn. With a sharp kick to the animal’s belly, the herald rode away, past the gates and the guards, until all that could be seen of him was the crimson red of his banner.

Vaguely, Laurent was aware of Auguste dismounting his horse as whispers around them grew louder and louder. He felt his brother’s hand on his elbow—the only acceptable place on Laurent’s body Auguste was allowed to touch without making everything worse—and let himself be pulled away from the entrance and into the palace. Others followed them inside, murmuring and asking questions, and their footsteps were so heavy it felt as though there were hundreds of them.

If Damianos was amongst them, Laurent did not know. And he did not dare turn to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! I hope you are all doing well. Nex chapter is Damen's POV so like, be prepared.  
> \- [Sophia drew Auguste with a beard!](https://mossygreen-art.tumblr.com/post/622619058890833920/thickenmyblood-what-have-you-done-auguste) (Personally, I think he's kinda hot, but I've been told by multiple people the beard thing is freaking you all out lmao). What do YOU think? (also, her laurent... I'm dead).  
> \- I'm sure you all noticed the quotes from the books in this chapter so like... yeah, that happened. That Aimeric scene is my favorite!  
> \- Next chapter, next Saturday! <3  
> Thank you for reading! Drink water >:0


	17. Fifteen

**Fifteen**

“We need to leave,” Nikandros said as soon as he had closed the door behind him. It was not an order but a plea. Damianos caught him looking at the floor as if contemplating whether or not to kneel. “This has nothing to do with us, with Akielos.”

Damianos did not want to be in this room, arguing with Nikandros over this. He wanted to be where Auguste and Laurent were, to help them plan what their next move would be. But if there was something he’d learned over the last year was that Kings seldom got to choose what they did or where they went. It was not about what Damianos wanted, but about what his people needed. And people, Damianos had come to realize, needed a lot, all the time.

“Exalted,” Nikandros said, and now he was openly begging. “If you—”

“You know I cannot leave,” Damianos said. “Not until they send me away. We are allies, have been for years, and I… What is the point of an alliance if it does not hold when one of the parts needs help?”

Nikandros held his gaze. “They?”

“Yes,” Damianos said. “They.”

“Prince Laurent has no real position in his brother’s Council. He’s only been of age for a few days, and is definitely not stable enough to—”

“Stable?”

Nikandros was silent for a moment and then said, “It does not matter what I think of him. What matters is that you cannot afford to stay here and side with them on this. You are still a new King. If this ends badly… If they lose, their allies will lose as well.”

“But what if they win?” Damianos said, trying hard not to imagine a world where Auguste’s people found him guilty. “Nikandros, you know he is being wrongly accused. Anyone who has met him knows there is no truth to those charges.”

Nikandros walked towards the window. The garden could be seen from there, eerily empty. Everyone had scattered after the herald’s arrival, some hiding and others plotting, and even the pets had known to make themselves scarce. Usually, the noise bothered Damianos, especially in the early mornings, but now he missed its normality, its casualness.

“How can we be sure of anything?” Nikandros asked, not looking at him but at the flower bushes. “Over lunch, I overheard…” He paused, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “The pets were talking about how, earlier, the King dragged his brother away from the arena.”

“I was there. Auguste wanted to speak to Laurent in private, that is all.”

“About Prince Torveld,” Nikandros said slowly. “The pets were implying he was jealous. One of them said he had overheard them arguing about it and that King Auguste was accusing his brother of bedding Prince Torveld.”

To this, Damianos said nothing. He had seen the way Auguste had dragged Laurent away from the crowd and had thought nothing of it. They were brothers. Didn’t brothers, especially these two, have disagreements? And it was also quite like Auguste to be worried about Laurent’s suitors. How many letters had Damianos read by him about this issue?

And yet… Damianos remembered Laurent’s rosy cheek back in the arena and felt sick. He knew how Laurent could get sometimes, how vicious. Damianos himself had wanted to strike him once or twice when Laurent was still a child in Ios, but to actually do it meant crossing a line Damianos had never wanted to see himself on the other side of.

Reading Auguste’s letters, miles away and years apart, it had been easy for Damianos to laugh at the whole thing. The fact that someone—anyone, really—was willing to look past Laurent’s cruelty and still want him had seemed to Damianos like a good thing. The sort of thing that Auguste should have wanted for his brother.

Except that now Damianos knew it was not about that at all. Laurent’s suitors were not moved by his wit, by his knowledge of languages and battle strategy. They did not care about his skill with a bow or how many books he’d read. Damianos had seen the way they looked at Laurent when they were sure Auguste was distracted. He’d heard the low, half-concealed whistles that filled a room when Laurent walked in.

It was not admiration that moved them, but lust.

“—of things,” Nikandros was saying. When, exactly, had he started pacing? “If he has not lain with Prince Torveld, then the Patrans are even more likely to leave. That Vaskian woman… I do not think she—”

“ _If_ ,” Damianos said, “he has not lain with him?”

Nikandros gave him a long, loaded look, under which Damianos did not squirm. “Exalted.”

 _He’s still a child_ , Damianos almost said but could not bring himself to. Laurent was not a child, had not been for some time, and Damianos was no the only one who was aware of this fact. Still, Laurent seemed to Damianos like the kind of man who would rather munch on rose stems and deal with their thorns than be intimate with another person.

Nikandros’s proposition that Laurent had not only accepted Torveld’s advances but encouraged them… It was simply preposterous.

“You have my permission to return to Akielos whenever you want,” Damianos said. He watched Nikandros’s face, studying his frown. “I will stay for as long as they’ll have me.”

“You have a kingdom to rule.”

“Two weeks, that is all. When Auguste leaves for the trial, I’ll return to Akielos.”

Nikandros eyed the floor again. _To kneel or not to kneel?_ Damianos imagined him thinking. “It is not for me to question you, but you are my king. It’d be disrespectful of me not to tell you that I think this is a mistake.”

“Is it a mistake because you fear for Akielos,” Damianos asked, “or because you are still entertaining those wild ideas about me and Prince Laurent? I am not lusting after the boy, Nikandros. I have told you this already.”

The room turned grey for a second, the sun hiding behind a cluster of clouds, and then orange. Damianos strained his ears, desperately wishing for sounds and laughter and music from the gardens, but silence reigned over the palace. Already he was missing the sound of the waves back home, the howling of the wind. This calm was unnatural.

Slowly and without looking away from Damianos’s face, Nikandros said, “King Auguste seems just and rational, but he flogged a man to death for murmuring obscenities about his brother. Do you think he will care about the alliance if—”

“There is no if. I am here as his friend— _their_ friend. Nothing more.”

Inside his head, an old and familiar thought came to him, twisting his stomach into a painful knot of shame and disgust. _He was a man and I am a King_. He’d told himself more or less the same thing four years back, in this very same palace. In the end, he had been right.

Nikandros’s mouth was a severe line. Damianos knew him well enough to see that he was not convinced, not in the slightest, by Damianos’s explanation.

“I’ve seen the way you look at him,” Nikandros said. “And I know we have discussed this already, but—”

“How, exactly, do I look at him?”

“Exalted.”

“Half of his brother’s court looks at him, the Patrans too. Do I look at him that way?”

“No,” Nikandros said. “And that’s what worries me.”

The door swung open so abruptly both of them flinched away from the sound. The person who’d barged in retreated quickly, closing the door again. There was a loud knock. A pause. And then another knock.

Nikandros and Damianos shared a look. “Come in,” Damianos said.

The door swung open again to reveal Lazar. “I am sorry, Exalted,” he said, not looking or sounding sorry at all. “I forgot to knock.”

Kastor never used to knock before entering a room.

“It’s all right,” Damianos said before Nikandros could say otherwise. “What’s the matter?”

“The King wishes to speak to you,” Lazar said, “in his rooms. He has sent me here to escort you, should you need escorting.”

Damianos almost laughed. Lazar sounded exactly how Laurent had described him: annoyingly bored and defiant. In fact, hadn’t Laurent called him a rude, filthy bastard once? Damianos had not thought much of it, given that Laurent had a slight tendency of calling everyone filthy and rude, but now he was starting to see it had not been a figure of speech after all.

“Does the King think I have forgotten where his rooms are?” Damianos said and moved closer to the door, stepping outside when Lazar slipped out of the way. He gave Nikandros, who was still in the room, a nod. “Let us go, then. I’m afraid he may be right.”

The halls were just as empty as the gardens. Each step Damianos and Lazar took echoed around them, lingering in the air, and then was gone only to be replaced by the next one. Damianos thought of asking Lazar where everyone was, and then decided he did not really care about anyone but Auguste and Laurent. If the Patrans had already gone, then Damianos would not be the one to complain about it. As for the Vaskian lady and her people…

Instead of knocking, Lazar pushed the door open and then said, “ _Fuck_.” He closed it again, paused, and rapped his knuckles on the wood.

Damianos eyed him curiously. “I thought guards were trained in etiquette?”

“They are,” Laurent said, holding the door open, “but this one is an idiot.”

Damianos tried not to stare at him, but it was hard when Laurent was right in front of him, blocking the way and holding himself so arrogantly, as though he was doing Damianos a favor by simply opening the door.

Even though he was smaller than Damianos, Laurent’s legs were long and graceful, almost girly, and his arms were not as lanky as Damianos had thought they were last night. It was obvious he would never have Auguste’s physique, for he did not train as hard as his brother, but he filled his clothes out nicely.

He was definitely not a child anymore.

Damianos slipped into the room before he could think about anything too much. Once inside, he made sure to put as much distance as possible between himself and Laurent, hoping to show Auguste that he was here to see him and not his bratty little brother.

Auguste’s rooms looked exactly the same as they had last time Damianos was here. The canopy bed was the same and so was every piece of furniture and every ornament. It was, in a way, like falling back in time. Last time he’d been here, Damianos had still had a family.

The door slammed shut, leaving Lazar out in the hall.

Laurent took five steps towards Damianos, crowding him against one of the chairs. “Tell my brother this is a bad idea.”

“This?” Damianos asked, sitting down on the chair to avoid Laurent coming closer. He looked around for the first time and found Auguste sitting on the window ledge, looking at the gardens. “If you mean the trial—”

“Of course I mean the trial,” Laurent bit out. He was so close Damianos could almost smell him, a mixture of scented oils and soap. “What do you think Auguste has summoned you here for? To drink and share a pet?”

Damianos had never shared anything in his life, least of all a pet. “Perhaps you should start by telling me if your brother plans to attend the trial or not.”

“My brother—”

“Yes,” Auguste said. When he turned from the window to face them, he looked so calm Damianos could not help but admire him. “I will go.”

Laurent let out a frustrated noise. “Tell him,” he said, looking at Damianos. He was using the sort of voice one would use when ordering a slave around. “Tell him it is a stupid idea.”

“The alternative is war,” Auguste said, not unkindly. “I have neither the men nor the resources. And my allies…” He drifted off, looking at Damianos. “This does not concern them. It’s a Veretian war.”

Damianos could not afford to follow him into war, not when Akielos was still recovering from the one it had endured four years ago. “Who will act as a judge at this trial?” Damianos asked, ignoring Laurent’s expression. “If it is a fair tribulation, then there is nothing to fear. The charges against you are ridiculous. They have always been.”

Auguste smiled for a second. “The herald threw a letter with all the details at the guards as he left. It seems there won’t be a judge, but several. They are to decide which one of us is telling the truth.”

“And how will these judges be selected? If they are from the south...”

“Three from the south,” Auguste replied, “and three from the north. That is my uncle’s idea of fairness. He believes he will be able to buy at least one, if not all, of the three northerners.”

“But if they are from the north and loyal to you, surely you can also promise them riches and lands. How will he buy them?”

“With his false proof, of course. If gold cannot sway them, then whatever he holds against me most likely will.” 

“Which is why it’s a stupid idea to go,” Laurent said in this new voice of his that made Damianos pause to listen every time he opened his mouth. “You have a better chance of winning if you face him on the field. The trial is a ruse, a scam. He would never ask you to go if he did not believe he could win.”

“What is his evidence against you anyway?” Damianos asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from the possibility of war. “Didn’t he state what proof he has in his letter?”

Laurent rubbed his hands over his face. “Of course he did not. The letter was simply the bait. He wants Auguste to go and face him because he knows—” Laurent broke off and did not open his mouth to speak again.

“He knows…?” Auguste asked him almost gently.

For once, Laurent seemed shy to answer. “He knows you have no instinct for deception.”

“And you do?” Damianos asked before he realized what it was that he was asking in the first place. It was not only rude but extremely stupid. Anyone who had spent more than five minutes in Laurent’s company knew the answer to that question.

“If you go,” Laurent said, looking at Auguste, “you will die.”

Auguste let out an amused sigh. “It sure is reassuring to know you have so much confidence in my abilities.”

Laurent turned to Damianos once more, coming closer. “Tell him you will lend him an army. Makedon’s. Tell him that if he goes—”

Damianos grabbed his hands, which were flailing all over the place, and held them in his. Laurent’s fingers were cold, exactly as Damianos remembered them, but they were also longer and slimmer. He’d grown everywhere.

“I cannot do that,” Damianos said. When Laurent’s hands turned into fists, he let them go. “I cannot ask my people to fight in a war that has nothing to do with Akielos. Even if I wanted to, Makedon’s army is not large enough to take on the south of Vere. I do not know how many Lords are loyal to your brother, but—”

“There will be no war,” Auguste said calmly. He gazed, for a moment, out the window. “My uncle has not caught me unprepared. I too have proof of his crimes and transgressions, as he likes to call them.”

Laurent blanched. “Auguste—”

“You will not come with me,” Auguste told him, although why that should have felt reassuring was a mystery to Damianos. Did Laurent think his brother would make him give testimony?

“No,” Laurent said, so fiercely Damianos could not look away from him. Not even to see Auguste’s expression. “You will not send me away with this brute again. That is why he’s here, isn’t it? You want to ask him to take me with him to Akielos.”

Damianos was silent for a moment. “Perhaps…”

“Don’t.”

“Laurent.”

“Do not agree to this, you incompetent—”

“Perhaps Laurent should go with you,” Damianos said.

“Yes,” Laurent said immediately. He did not seem to remember that five seconds ago he had called Damianos a brute. “Surprisingly, he is right.”

Damianos put his hands up, trying to stop Auguste from replying. Veretians were fast thinkers and even faster speakers, and so Damianos simply needed one moment of quiet before he could explain himself.

“Who will you rely on once you’re there? Your guards?” Damianos thought of Lazar and tried not to sigh. He continued saying, “Laurent is smart, he could help you. You only have two weeks to plan your defense. It is not a lot, but with his—”

“My friend,” Auguste said, rising from the window sill he had been lounging on. “I appreciate your advice. You know that I—”

“He’s dismissing you,” Laurent informed Damianos.

“—value your opinions highly, yet on this matter you are ill-informed. I would like to ask you for one last favor, and if you refuse, then we have nothing else to discuss right now.”

Damianos watched as Auguste went to stand next to Laurent, making it easier for Damianos to look at both of them at the same time without having to turn his face. Laurent’s face was red, both of his cheeks round and angry-colored. His right cheek was slightly pinker, and Damianos wondered, not for the first time that day if Auguste had stricken him earlier.

“Is it too much,” Auguste said, “for me to ask you to take my brother with you when you go?”

“I do not think he wants to come to Akielos with me.”

Shrugging, Auguste said, “I am the King. At least in the north. If I command him to go, he has no other option but to obey.”

“Or what?” Laurent said. “You will have me flogged? Or better yet, you will strip me of my lands and titles?”

Auguste ignored him. His blue eyes were on Damianos as though there was no other person in the room. “I am asking this of you as your friend. If you refuse, I will not hold it against you. Or your people.”

“If you agree,” Laurent said venomously, “I _will_ hold it against you and your people.”

 _I hate Veretians_ , Damianos thought. “I will take him with me,” he said, “should the trial go wrong.”

Auguste and Laurent stared at him, both equally upset by his proposition. However, this did not bother Damianos in the slightest. If being King had taught him anything, it was that one could never please everyone. Never.

“He can help you,” Damianos told Auguste. “You know he can. It is foolish to march into this trial and leave him behind when we both know he is the smartest person in this room.”

“Both of you,” Auguste said, “offend me terribly.”

Damianos rose from his seat, marveling again at how small Laurent was now that they were both standing.

“I will go with you,” Damianos said, thinking of nothing but Nikandros’s face. _Two weeks, that is all_ , Damianos had told him. He could only hope the trial did not last another two weeks. “And if things do not go according to plan, I will take Laurent with me to Akielos.”

“And you think our uncle will let you?” Laurent asked. He was ogling Damianos like a child would a particularly disgusting bug. “I have always known of your mental limitations, Damianos, but this is something else entirely.”

“I do not need your uncle’s permission.”

“Do you have an escape plan already?” Auguste asked him. “You cannot cross the south on a horse.”

“We could plan this,” Damianos said, feeling hopeful for the first time since the herald had opened his mouth that day. “Don’t you see? We need to stop wasting our time with petty arguments and focus on what’s important. We have fourteen days until Auguste has to leave.”

“Until _we_ have to leave,” Laurent corrected him.

Auguste touched his beard, looking solemn. Damianos had commented on it last night when Laurent had already left, telling him that facial hair looked ridiculous on him. Auguste had simply laughed and said, _I bet all my money you will have a beard too when you reach thirty._

Damianos, feeling like an intruder, watched as Auguste put his hands over Laurent’s shoulders. Before in the arena, Laurent had claimed to be as tall as his brother, but now that Damianos was standing in front of them he could appreciate that Auguste was still a head, if not more, taller.

“Do you trust me?” Auguste asked.

Laurent blinked. “I—of course I do. What does trust have to do with this?”

“I promised you that I would explain everything tonight,” Auguste said, “but I can’t. Not tonight, Laurent.”

“Why not?”

“Because if you are going to help me with this, I need your head to be clear. I need you to be focused on this and nothing else.”

“What is ‘this’?” Laurent asked. He looked deflated, as though someone had bled him dry. “The trial?”

Auguste shook his head. “The escape plan.”

“But I could help you with the rest too. I don’t understand why you’re—”

“Do you trust me?”

Damianos looked away. His hand touched his stomach over the chiton he was wearing, feeling the echoes of old pain. Sometimes, thinking about Kastor was easy. When Lazar had walked into the room without knocking, it had not been hurt that stirred inside Damianos. But there were other times, like now, when he felt as though the wounds would never truly heal. It was then that he’d think to himself: _I have gained a kingdom and lost it all._

“Yes,” Laurent said after a pause. His voice was sharp and void of hesitancy. “I trust you.”

“Then do as I say. When the time comes, I’ll explain it to you.”

Once the silence had stretched on for far too long, Damianos decided it was safe to look at them again. Auguste had moved away, leaning against the wall. Laurent was looking at the floor, his blue eyes set on one of the tiles.

“Tonight the feast will go on as planned,” Auguste said to no one in particular. “We’ll entertain the guests and send them on their way in the morning. Most of them must already be packing, I’ll warrant. And tomorrow…”

“And tomorrow?” Damianos asked.

Auguste touched his beard again, said, “It begins.”

*

The night was warm and inviting, and so Auguste decided that the feast should be celebrated in the gardens. All the guests had stayed, even those Damianos would have preferred to see gone, and the pets seemed to have grown bolder in the new scenery. Moans could be heard from behind the stone pillars, but also from under the tables and dark corners the gardens provided. Bushes and trees, as it turned out, were excellent hiding spots for lovers.

Above them, the moon was full and silver, shining brighter than the torches that had been lit all over the place to keep the darkness at bay. When Damianos looked at it, all he could think of was that in Ios, the moon always seemed closer to the ground than it did here in Arles. It was a trick of the mind, of this he was sure, and yet the difference was undeniable.

Veretian courtiers wore their stiff clothes, all laces and golden hems, while Akielons stuck to the chitons and tunics. Patran fashion was different from anything Damianos had ever seen, but it was still easier to digest that whatever the Vaskian ladies were wearing. How could someone stand there, covered in furs, and not break out in a sweat? Damianos could not even pretend to understand them.

Drinking his wine, Damianos watched as Auguste tried to understand what Halvik was saying. As far as he knew, Auguste was awful at languages and the Vaskian woman did not speak Veretian. The sight sparked up a memory inside Damianos: Auguste, four years younger, trying to keep up with the conversation between a Kyros and Damianos’s father at the dinner table. Auguste nodded and smiled a lot, but from time to time confusion would flood his face, twisting his features comically.

When he spotted Nikandros, Damianos decided it was time to change locations. He had spent the whole day avoiding him, trying to come up with a solid and firm explanation for the choices he had made in Auguste’s rooms. So far, he had nothing, and so he would not submit himself to Nikandros’s scolding. Or, as Nikandros liked to call it, friendly advice.

He moved through the gardens quietly, trying to ignore the moans and sighs that seemed to come from all directions, until he spotted the water fountain. The statue was the same, a weeping woman that looked even uglier in the dark, and Damianos was about to turn around and walk the other way in an attempt to get away from her when he saw them.

Laurent and Torveld were sitting by the water together. Without thinking, Damianos moved closer, making sure to stay out of their field of vision, and told himself this behavior was perfectly normal. He was, after all, in charge of Laurent’s safety. Hadn’t he promised Auguste that very same day that he’d take Laurent away from danger, should the opportunity present itself?

And what was more dangerous than this?

“—he can be,” Laurent was saying. “I hope he has not offended you with his… assumptions.”

“Those would never offend me.” Torveld favored Laurent with another of those long, admiring looks that made Damianos feel a bit sick. He said, “In fact, I did not correct him.”

Laurent tilted his head to the side like a curious bird. The breeze made his blond hair sway invitingly. Just when Damianos thought Laurent would open his mouth and murmur some barbed reply, Torveld continued talking.

“I must admit I had already heard of you before I came to Arles, but believe me when I say I had no intention of ever declaring myself to you.”

Laurent laughed. “You do not need to explain yourself. Auguste… he worries too much.”

“And then I met you,” Torveld said as though Laurent had not spoken at all, “and spent an hour in your company.”

Even in the poorly lit gardens, it was easy to see Laurent was holding himself very still. His face was white as bone, his nose so aristocratic it made his profile both uncanny and hard to look away from.

“More than an hour,” Laurent said, not harshly enough for Damianos’s liking. Where, he wondered, was Laurent’s cruelty? “Less than a day.”

“It is hard to keep track of the time when around you. You have a way with words, Laurent. I do not think I have ever met anyone like you before.”

Laurent said nothing.

“Perhaps I should have gone to your brother last night and explained to him my intentions. Usually, one would ask a parent, but—”

“What,” Laurent said, so slowly it made Damianos want to throttle him, “are you talking about?”

Torveld drew back. His hand had been reaching out to touch Laurent’s hair. “I’d like to court you, Laurent.”

Damianos stepped forward determinedly, ready to say anything that would put an end to this disastrous scene playing before him, but Laurent’s words held him in place, merely one step closer to them than he’d been seconds ago.

“Forget courtship,” Laurent said. “If I agreed to marry you, would you lend my brother an army?”

They stared at each other for a long time. In the end, it was Torveld who looked away first, defeated.

“I do not think King Torgeir would allow that,” Torveld said. “But Laurent, I—”

“Then it is a good thing you have not made a public spectacle of this. Do not fret, I will make sure no one knows I have rejected your advances.”

Relief, sweet as honey, washed over Damianos.

Torveld recoiled as if slapped. “Do you not think an army is too much for a courtship gift?”

“I think,” Laurent said as he stood up and smoothed the wrinkles out of his clothes, “that you get distracted more easily than you admit. Have you not heard the rumors about me?”

“I have heard a great deal of gossip about you, but I judge as I find. When people told me you were not easily courted, I never thought you would ask me for an army.”

“What did you think I’d want, then? A pretty orchid and a book? A bottle of wine?”

Damianos could not stand there and watch any longer. He knew if he allowed this to happen, Auguste’s alliance with Patras would suffer greatly. Before, he’d been surprised by Laurent’s lack of cruelty, and now he was surprised to find there were so many layers to it. If left to his own devices, Laurent would flay this man alive with his tongue.

Torveld was gazing at Laurent with a new look on his eyes. After a long moment, “Do you even like orchids?”

“No,” Laurent said, “but I do like horses. You seemed interested in my riding abilities last night. Did you think I’d trip over myself for the opportunity to ride your—”

“King Damianos,” Torveld said, not bothering to hide how relieved he was that his conversation with Laurent had been interrupted. “Have you seen Lady Halvik?”

“She’s by the roses with King Auguste,” Damianos said easily. No sooner had the words left his mouth than Torveld was mumbling an apology and slipping away to, presumably, meet the Vaskian woman.

Laurent sat down by the fountain again. Up close, Damianos could appreciate the glimmer of his silver laces and the fine fit of his shirt. It was easy to see what had had Torveld so flustered, for Laurent seemed to glow in the moonlight. Even his hair, loose and draped over one shoulder, looked strangely ethereal.

“I knew you were standing there.”

“There are nicer ways to let a man down,” Damianos said as he sat where Torveld had minutes ago. He tried, to no avail, not to think of what this would look like to an outsider. “That was reckless of you. Your brother needs the Patrans as allies now more than ever.”

Laurent’s hand disappeared into the black water of the fountain. “What good is an ally if he won’t follow you into war?”

“You heard Auguste, there will be no war.”

“Because he does not have an army,” Laurent argued. His hand emerged, the drops of water glistening on his skin like pearls. The hem of his shirt had also gotten wet, clinging tightly to Laurent’s delicate wrist. “If he did…”

“There is no guarantee anyways. He could still be killed in battle, even with ten thousand men fighting by his side.” Damianos hesitated, watching Laurent’s hand sink into the water again. “If Auguste wanted that army, I am sure he would have found a way to get it himself.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“King Torgeir of Patras has multiple daughters,” Damianos said. “And I know Auguste favors women over men. It would not be a great sacrifice for him to wed one of them in exchange for some troops. Trust me on this, Laurent. If your brother wanted war, he’d be able to afford it.”

Laurent’s hand, underwater, became a fist. “That is not why he wants to marry.”

That was not what Damianos had been expecting him to say. _You’re a fool_ and _My brother would never lose in battle_ were amongst the things Damianos had thought Laurent would use as arguments. Auguste’s marriage, or lack thereof, seemed stupidly irrelevant.

“He mentioned it in a couple of his letters,” Damianos said, feeling like he ought to explain his assumptions. “I understand what it is like, for there is not a day that Nikandros does not remind me that my father married my mother three months into being crowned King.”

“A wifeless King makes men uneasy,” Laurent said. And then, “He wants to marry because of me.”

“Oh?”

“He thinks…” Laurent licked his lips. Damianos tried not to stare at his mouth. “He thinks it’ll stop the rumors about us.”

“Why hasn’t he married already then? Has it taken him four years to decide which one of King Torgeir’s daughters he likes the most?”

“There was a girl a few years back.”

Damianos frowned. Had Auguste ever mentioned her in his letters? “Was she lowborn?”

Laurent looked at him, surprised. “No, she—her father was a Lord.”

“Then why didn’t they marry?”

“She turned out to be one of my uncle’s spies.”

Damianos tried to find something, anything, to say. He could not.

Laurent said, “King Torgeir’s daughters are not of age yet. The oldest one is Aimeric’s age, I believe. And besides… Auguste was advised not to marry right away.”

“Right away?”

“Right after we returned from Akielos. The Council said it’d look suspicious—like he was rushing things to try and hide his true preferences.”

There was a loud moan to their right. Damianos watched Laurent react to it and then force himself not to react. His face went from absolute disgust to cold indifference, exactly like that expressionless mask he had liked to slip on as a child. It was a strange reaction for a man to have. A blush Damianos would have understood. Maybe even an awkward smile, conspiratory. But not this stiffness, this revulsion.

Trying to get rid of some of the obvious tension in the air, Damianos turned his face to the water and said, “Do you think you’d drown if you fell in there?”

“Of course not. It’s a fountain, not a pool.”

“You are very short though,” Damianos said, his heart in his throat. He could feel Laurent’s eyes on him. He could always tell when Laurent was looking at him. “I bet you would not even touch the bo—”

“Is it cold?” Laurent asked him after splashing him with the fountain water. He did it again, this time making sure to aim for Damianos’s face. “Tell me, is it cold?”

Damianos caught Laurent by the wrist, the front of his chiton already soaking wet and clinging to him like a second skin. The night was warm, but not warm enough for this to be pleasant. In the breeze, Damianos shuddered.

With his arm in a strange angle, Laurent began to lose his balance. He was slipping closer and closer to the water, no longer trying to pull away from Damianos but rather holding on to him to keep from falling backward into the pond.

“Don’t let go,” Laurent ordered him. “I mean it, Damianos. If you drop me—”

“I won’t drop you,” Damianos said, smiling. He did not let Laurent stand, but he also did not push him into the water. “ _If_ you apologize.”

“No.”

“You splashed me.”

“It was provoked. You were calling me a dwarf again.”

Damianos only held him tighter. “Just say you’re sorry.”

“No.”

“Laurent.”

“I said no, you imbecile.” And then, hastily, he added, “Do _not_ drop me.”

“Apologize.”

“No.”

Shrugging, Damianos let go of him. He was about to start laughing when Laurent’s arms closed around his neck in a death-like grip, pulling him down as well. Laurent was not heavy, but he had caught Damianos by surprise, and so he had no time to steady himself or step back.

They both fell into the water. Laurent’s hair tickled Damianos’s face, and his arms around Damianos’s neck were cutting off all his air supply. The water was not cold but freezing, as though the sun had not touched it at all during the day. It burned Damianos’s nose when he accidentally breathed it in.

Damianos emerged first. Sitting up, the water barely reached his chest. He watched as Laurent’s head broke the water’s surface, his blond hair so dark it looked black, plastered to his face like algae to a rock. His expression was murderous. Laurent sat as well, and Damianos was pleased to notice that the water was up to his neck.

He was smaller.

“You should have apologized.”

“Do not,” Laurent said, “talk to me.”

Damianos laughed. Before he knew he was doing it, his fingers began to tuck some wet strands of Laurent’s hair behind his ears. “There,” he said, patting Laurent on the head when he was done.

Strangely, Laurent was not scowling. “Do you not care at all about what they’ll say when they see us soaking wet?”

“If by _they_ you mean Lady Halvik and Prince Torveld, then no.”

“She’s not a lady.”

Damianos laughed, he could not help it. “Of course she isn’t.”

Laurent was sitting so still the water around him looked frozen, not a single ripple or wave disturbing its surface. He opened his mouth—pink enough to make Damianos look twice at it—but a gasp and a moan interrupted him. This time, Damianos anticipated his reaction because he had seen it before. Laurent’s lips went from plump and rosy to a tight, white line. Even though it was too dark to see, Damianos knew his fists were clenched underwater.

“Do they truly bother you that much?”

After a pause, Laurent said, “Yes, they do.”

“Why?”

“Must one always have a reason for disliking something?”

“This,” Damianos said, “is not merely a dislike.”

Laurent stood. Water came pouring down like rain down his arms and the cuffs of his pants, and all Damianos could do was stare. Wet, Laurent’s hair was even longer and straighter, but also darker—a shade of brown that made him almost unrecognizable. His shirt had been turned translucent, but the cloth his vest was made of was thick and dark enough to hide the skin underneath it.

“I can’t afford to catch a cold,” Laurent said, already moving towards the edge of the fountain.

“Wait,” Damianos said. He stood up as well, overly-aware of how his chiton was clinging to him. Unlike Laurent, he had no vest to hide behind. He was not even wearing a cape. “Let me walk you to your rooms so you can change.”

“Why?”

“Your rooms are close to mine.”

“Your rooms,” Laurent said slowly as he sat on the marble edge and lifted his legs out of the water, “are on the other side of the palace. In another wing.”

Oh. “Do you despise me so much you cannot bear my presence another couple of minutes?”

Laurent lowered his legs into the water again. That brief, second-like pause made Damianos’s heart stutter. He did not think Laurent hated him, but to see him consider his answer so carefully made doubt squirm inside him, under his skin, like a hundred wriggling maggots.

And then Laurent smiled, kicking water into Damianos’s face.

*

The days moved quickly, filled with the studying of maps and books of laws, and by the time Damianos had stopped to think about it, the two weeks were almost gone. Because they wanted—or rather, Auguste wanted—to have the element of surprise, they decided to leave on the tenth day instead of the fourteenth, something that both complicated things and somehow made them easier.

On one hand, planning and plotting were not activities to be done in a rush if one wanted to avoid making mistakes down the line. On the other, the more time they spent cooped up in Arles the worse, for Auguste’s men were growing more jittery and nervous with each passing day. Even the courtiers, usually distasteful but inoffensive, were growing restless. It seemed that Veretians wanted the whole issue to be settled, one way or another.

Nikandros watched Damianos mount his horse, the scowl he’d been sporting for almost a fortnight not softening at all at their impending separation. Wordlessly, he handed Damianos a cape, a canteen, and tightened the straps that held Damianos’s sword in place.

“Say it,” Damianos said. “You think this is a terrible idea.”

“Exalted.”

Damianos sighed. “Say what you think, Nikandros. You have my permission.”

“This,” Nikandros said, “is a terrible idea.”

“I disagree.”

But now that Nikandros had started talking, all the things he had been keeping inside and frowning at for the past ten days came pouring out of his mouth like water through the cracks of a dam. “Why do you need to be there? It makes no sense. One of King Auguste’s men should have been tasked with seeing Prince Laurent to safety if things go wrong. And they _will_ go wrong. These are _Veretians_. They have no notion of fair game, they play by their own rules. You are a King, not King Auguste’s councilor. And the _Prince_ —Exalted, do not—”

“I know you mean well,” Damianos said, gently cutting him off. “I trust your advice. But this is something I must do. How long will this trial be, anyway? In a few weeks, we’ll be reunited in Ios, and we will laugh thinking about this whole thing.”

Nikandros’s face, which Damianos had thought could not become any stonier, hardened. “If you trust my advice,” he said, “do not bed him.”

“Him?”

“Exalted,” Nikandros began to say and paused. Starting all over again, he said, “Damianos. As your friend, please listen to reason.”

Damianos frowned. Under him, his horse was getting impatient. “I am listening to you.”

“Here is my advice: when you get to Chastillon, find yourself a pretty blonde girl. It should not be hard, considering this is Vere. Bed her. Then find another like her and bed her too. Then bed them both again. But please—” Nikandros broke off. “I beg of you. Do not bed _him_.”

He did not mean Laurent, did he? “I have no plans to spend what is left of my time in Vere fucking. There are more pressing matters to attend to.” He paused, trying to figure out what else he ought to say to convince Nikandros that there was nothing to fear. “All will be well,” he settled for saying.

Nikandros tilted his head back, watching the wooden ceiling of the stables for a moment. When he looked at Damianos again, his face was stoic and hard to read. “If you are wrong,” he said, “Akielos will pay the price.”

Damianos knew that. If Auguste lost and his uncle was named the Regent of Vere, it was obvious the man would not simply forget about Damianos’s alliance to his predecessor. Auguste and Laurent’s uncle would most likely cut off all ties to Akielos, damaging not only the precarious but growing cultural exchange between the two nations but also severing the trade routes and imports that had helped Akielos prosper since the war.

It was said Auguste’s uncle had pushed hard for the war between Akielos and Vere to happen in the first place. He had not been happy when Auguste had signed the peace treaty, and in the last few days Damianos had come to learn that in the south, people were not happy either about the situation with Delpha— _Delfeur_ , Laurent’s voice corrected him inside his head.

If Auguste lost, would there be war again?

“If I am right,” Damianos said, “there is nothing to fear.”

“Exalted.”

Damianos’s horse neighed, this time moving closer to the door of the stables. “I will see you in a few days,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Nikandros. “Or weeks. Be safe.”

“Be safe,” he heard Nikandros say as well. And then, lower and prayer-like, “Let him be right.”

Auguste and Laurent were already waiting for him at the gates, just as they had agreed to the night before. Laurent’s mare was even more beautiful than Damianos had thought when he’d seen her in the stables, and also smaller. It had to be, Damianos told himself, or else how would Laurent be able to mount her?

Auguste was wearing blue, probably to assert himself as the King. There was no crown on his head, yet Damianos knew Auguste planned on wearing it when he faced his uncle. His beard had been carefully trimmed the night before, but Damianos still caught Laurent looking at it with a disgruntled expression. If forced to state his opinion, Damianos would have agreed with Laurent. Beards were not a look he particularly liked, not when they did nothing but remind him of his family.

There was a small party of men surrounding the two brothers. Some faces were familiar to Damianos, who’d spent the last ten days sharing a dining table with them, while others he had never seen before. Jord and Lazar were there, and so was Aimeric. That made Damianos pause, wondering what reason Auguste could have for dragging that boy into this mess. The rest of them Damianos could not name, not even if their faces were familiar, and so he soon gave up trying.

“We’ll ride to Chastillon and spend the night there,” Auguste announced. “In the morning, we leave for Barbin.”

Auguste took the lead, and soon everyone followed. Laurent and Lazar rode side by side, and so did Jord and Aimeric. Pallas, the only guard Damianos had decided to bring with him, was in the middle of a conversation with what could only have been a soldier. It was a strange sight, for Damianos had not been aware that Pallas spoke Veretian.

Damianos waited for a moment, watching them, and then forced his horse to follow as well.

He had barely made it outside of the palace when he realized the man to his far-left was not a stranger, as he had thought before, but Paschal. The cloth of his shirt was simple, nothing like the exotic fabrics Damianos had gotten used to seeing him draped in during his first visit to Arles, and his pants were made of cheap-looking linen. Even the horse he was riding seemed like the sort of animal a commoner would own.

Paschal did not look like a royal physician at all.

“Exalted,” Paschal said when he noticed Damianos’s eyes on him. They had been riding in comfortable silence for a while, bordering the city to avoid the market and the main road.

“Paschal,” Damianos said as a greeting. Without thinking, he added, “I did not expect to see you here.”

Paschal smiled. His face looked like an old painting, cracked and frayed by time. He’d been almost handsome once, but now he looked worn and tired. _Perhaps he is ill_ , Damianos thought. Although why Auguste would drag a sick man into the trial escaped him.

Hating the stilted silence around them, Damianos said, “Let us hope we won’t require your services during this journey.”

“I am not here as a physician,” Paschal said casually as if they were talking about the grass or the sun or the birds. “But I do hope for the same.”

Damianos frowned. Surely the point of Paschal riding with them to the border was to intervene if anyone got hurt. It made no sense to march into danger without so much as one physician.

“If you are not to tend to our wounded or nurse the sick back to health, then how is it you find yourself here?”

“Men find themselves in the places they put themselves,” Paschal said, the smile long gone from his face. The faintest of stubbles surrounded his mouth. “I simply do as my King commands.”

Damianos did not know what to say to that. He thought of Nikandros’s warning— _these are Veretians_ —and decided that it was probably for the best that he kept silent. Here, he was surrounded by people who never said what they meant and were only moved by their own personal gain. Suddenly, he was glad Nikandros had convinced him to drag Pallas along.

*

Their arrival as Chastillon was not like Damianos had thought it would be.

At first, Damianos thought Auguste had sent Laurent to the rear in order to announce to the men that they had made it and explain what they were supposed to do next. Yet Laurent rode past all of them, as though he was heading back to the palace, and only brought his horse to a halting stop when one of Auguste’s guards started to go after him.

Damianos was not the last man in the long line that had been following Auguste for the last couple of hours, but he was close enough to the rear end that when he commanded his horse to stop, it did not catch anyone’s attention.

Eventually, Laurent turned his mare back around and begun to ride back in the right direction. When he noticed Damianos had waited for him, he did not simply race to the front of the line as Damianos had been expecting him to. Instead, he stayed right by Damianos’s side.

“Did something happen?” Damianos asked.

Laurent’s hands were holding the reins so tightly they trembled. His knuckles, often pink when relaxed, were now bone-white. And his face… There was something there Damianos could not read.

“No,” Laurent said, not looking at him but straight ahead. “I grew bored of listening to Lazar’s dirty jokes, that is all.”

Damianos heard the lie in his words far too easily. Usually, Laurent was better at hiding his true emotions, but whatever was upsetting him seemed to have a hold of all his concentration. Damianos could not help but wonder what had made him abandon his spot by Auguste’s side.

Unprompted, Laurent said, “I hate this place.”

Damianos looked around. Chastillon was surrounded by pines, the sort that grew tall and blocked out the sun when one stood under them. There were crisscrossing paths, like circuits, for riding, and the villages close to it had seemed to Damianos almost cozy. It was definitely not a place Damianos would have called ugly or plain.

“Had you been here before?”

“When I was a child,” Laurent said, and it seemed like there was something else he wanted to add. After only a moment’s hesitation, he went on to say firmly, “I used to come here with Auguste.”

“Is that so?”

“We’d race and he’d let me win, every time.” Laurent sounded almost bitter, which Damianos could not understand one bit. He would have thought Laurent’s time in Ios had taught him the importance of brotherhood. “I was so mad when I found out the truth.”

Damianos could almost picture it. Laurent, aged ten or eleven, complaining to Auguste about the unfairness of it all. _There is no need to let me win_ , Laurent would have said, _I know I can beat you._ And Auguste, laughing, would have challenged him to another race, only to let him win once more.

“Is that why you dislike the place?” Damianos asked, still thinking about a younger version of Laurent. “Auguste told me the other day he had not been here since before the war. I can only imagine how many things have changed since then. Surely nothing is as you remember it.”

Laurent turned his head very slowly to face Damianos. “I did not stop coming to Chastillon during the war,” he said. And then, with great effort, “My uncle and I would spend entire days here while my brother was away.”

Damianos frowned. As lovely as the sights here were, there did not seem to be much to do besides walking or riding. Perhaps, he thought, Laurent’s uncle had only been trying to take Laurent’s mind off of things back then.

Auguste’s absence must have been rough on him, and taking Laurent away from the palace where everything reminded him of his brother must have seemed like the perfect solution. It was strange to think of the man like that—caring, nurturing—but maybe things had been different back then.

Before Damianos could ask him about it, Laurent took off, riding hastily to the front again.

*

That night Damianos was so exhausted from all the riding that he barely ate any dinner. Auguste and most of the guards were still up and drinking by the time Damianos decided it was time to go to sleep.

The rooms were few and crowded, but Auguste, Laurent, and Damianos all had their own chambers. On his way up the stairs, Damianos walked past a window that faced west. He barely glanced at it, his bones complaining that they wanted to rest, but a few steps later he stopped and went back to it.

It was so dark outside Damianos had to squint his eyes to find what he was looking for. Finally, he saw him, a stillhouse crouching down in front of the dog kennel. Auguste had told Damianos that Chastillon was famous for its hounds, that their breeding was immaculate. They were supposed to be lethal, vicious animals.

So why was Laurent petting them and letting them lick his hands and face?

Laurent, who hated dirt and filth and spit. Laurent, who never wanted to touch anyone unless he was certain they had no diseases. Laurent.

Damianos tore his eyes away and continued the hike up the stairs. He added what he’d just seen to the long list of things about the Veretian royal family he did not understand. 

The rooms Auguste had given him were not what Damianos would have called luxurious in any way, but that did not bother him at all. He’d seen Auguste’s rooms and did not envy him, especially because of the spider webs he had seen on the ceiling.

Damianos’s pallet was warm and inviting, not exactly a kingly bed but comfortable enough for Damianos to doze off almost instantly when his head hit the pillow.

Had he been staying somewhere familiar, the noise of the door creaking open would not have made him stir awake. He was not a light sleeper by any means, but being surrounded by too many strangers in a location never before visited had his nerves on end.

“What,” Damianos said, rubbing at his eyes, “are you doing here?”

It was dark but Damianos did not need candles to know the person dithering on the doorway was Laurent. If asked to explain himself, he would not have been able to give a satisfactory answer. How did he know? It was not as though he could smell Laurent from where he was laying, and the room was so dark there was no way to tell just by looking. Still, Damianos knew, and that knowledge scared him far beyond what he was comfortable admitting to himself.

Laurent closed the door softly, something very unlike him. If their shared winter in Akielos had taught Damianos anything, it was that Laurent liked to slam doors as he went. He’d told Damianos it was simply to announce his presence, that Princes were required to let people know they had entered a room, but Damianos had always thought it was Laurent’s small way of forbidding those around him to ignore him.

Damianos sat up on the pallet, a yawn threatening to fall from his lips at any second. “What—”

“Shut up,” Laurent said calmly. He walked up to the very edge of Damianos’s ‘bed’ and stood there for a second. “Go back to sleep.”

“I will if you explain to me what is happening.”

“Do you have an extra pillow?”

Damianos reached blindly for the only spare cushion he had—small, lumpy, and itchy—and tossed it at Laurent, who caught it in mid-air. “Are there no pillows in your room?” he asked, already sinking back into the mattress and closing his eyes.

“I did not wish to be seen carrying a pillow under my arm,” Laurent said, and his voice had gotten closer. “I like the one you’re sleeping with better.”

“Of course you do,” Damianos said. “I like it better too.”

There was a pause. After a moment, Damianos thought Laurent had silently left the room with his new pillow, but then a faint cough startled him and showed him Laurent had only circled the bed.

“Is there something else you need?”

“Yes,” Laurent answered. “A blanket.”

And then Damianos understood what was happening. He sat back up, blinking furiously to try and keep sleep away. “You can’t sleep on the floor of my rooms.”

“These aren’t _your_ rooms. Think of them as a temporary setting.” Laurent stole the thick covers, pulling them off the bed when Damianos was too busy yawning to defend himself. “It is not that cold tonight. The sheet alone will do for you.”

“Laurent.”

Laurent did not answer. He was too busy arranging the covers and the pillow he’d stolen into some sort of nest next to Damianos’s pallet. Finally satisfied with his creation, he lay down on it.

“Laurent,” Damianos repeated.

“Yes?”

“You cannot sleep on the floor.”

“Out of the two of us,” Laurent said, “I’m the one most well-suited to sleep down here.”

Damianos let out a groan. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re a King and I’m a Prince. In the royal hierarchy, you’re higher up.”

“That— _Laurent._ ”

“Go to sleep. I’ll be gone in the morning.”

Damianos knew what awaited them in the morning: a long ride to Barbin without any stops until they had reached the border. He’d slept on the floor multiple times in his life, all of them next to Laurent’s bed, and he knew how stiff one’s body was after a whole night of tossing and turning on marble tiles. It was a bad combination.

“Come here,” Damianos said. “I’ll take the floor.”

“No.”

“If you want to sleep there, you have to explain to me why you don’t want to be in your rooms. Otherwise, you get the bed.”

Another pause. “I’ve told you already.”

Damianos could not remember a single thing Laurent had said that day, his brain too exhausted to function properly. “Then tell me again.”

But Laurent could not. Under different circumstances—with a functioning brain, perhaps—Damianos would have felt bad for using Laurent’s weakness against him. When had Laurent told the truth willingly, about anything? Damianos had known from the moment he asked Laurent to tell him what was happening that Laurent would not be able to do it.

“Come on,” Damianos said, lowering himself to the cold floor. “If you go to sleep now, you won’t be exhausted in the morning.”

Without speaking, they traded places. Laurent sat perched up on the edge of the pallet for a long time, watching Damianos re-arrange the covers and the cushion. Every now and then Damianos would look at Laurent, at the shadow the night had made of him, and he’d known Laurent was staring back at him.

Damianos sighed when he found a position that did not make him want to groan. He was not exactly warm, but he was not cold either. It was a sort of in-between, a comfortable discomfort. He closed his eyes and tried, for the second time that night, to fall asleep.

“This mattress is awful,” Laurent said.

“It is,” Damianos agreed, trying not to sound as annoyed as he felt. He wished Laurent would stop talking.

“I had never slept here before.” A pause. Then Laurent added, “It’s hideously damp.”

Now Damianos did groan. “If you find it so terrible, why not sleep in your own rooms?”

Laurent kept quiet.

It was a while before Damianos spoke again. He tried, at first, to ignore the guilt bubbling inside him, simmering under his skin. It was not often Laurent started conversations, and Damianos had shut him down so quickly it must have come across as rude. After some tossing and turning, Damianos sighed and gave in.

“It is,” he said. “Damp, I mean.”

“I know,” Laurent said. “I just told you.”

Desperate to talk about anything but how terrible the room was, Damianos asked, “Did you enjoy today’s ride?”

“Of course not. I had to ride next to Lazar.”

“You used to like him as a child.”

Laurent was silent for a moment. “I don’t dislike him now if that is what you’re implying.”

“He curses like a sailor.”

“He does. And his jokes are terrible.”

Damianos could online imagine. “Tell me one.”

“Why?”

“Because I’d like to hear it.”

“Why would you want to hear it?”

“Because,” Damianos said, “I just do.”

“There was one about a merchant who had lost some of his teeth, and was afraid that others would fall out too because they were so loose.” Laurent paused. The sound of rustling sheets followed, and when he spoke again his voice was louder as if he had shifted closer to the edge of the pallet. “One of his friends reassured him that they wouldn’t.”

“Is that the joke? Veretian humor is—”

“I am not done yet,” Laurent said. Was he rolling his eyes? “The merchant asked his friend why he was so sure that his remaining teeth would not fall out. And the man answered: ‘Because my testicles have been hanging loose for the last forty years as if they were going to fall off, and yet, there they are still.’”

Damianos snorted. And then, without knowing exactly why, he started laughing. The joke was terrible, and Laurent was anything but a good jester. The pacing had been off, the punchline too late, and yet Damianos could not stop cackling.

“I can’t believe you are laughing at this,” Laurent said, trying to sound disdainful. Damianos could hear the smile in his voice. “I should have known you’d share Lazar’s sense of humor.”

“Tell me another one.”

There was another long pause. “You should get some sleep.”

They both should, but Damianos did not bother telling Laurent that. He knew Laurent knew. He also knew Laurent would not go to sleep any time soon, not even if Damianos turned around and stopped replying.

“I’ll tell you one then,” Damianos said. He knew quite a few, but only one stood out in his mind now, pushing to be told. “A man went to a physician and said: ‘Whenever I get up from sleeping, I’m groggy for a half an hour afterward and only after that am I all right’. To which the physician replied: ‘Then get up half an hour later.’”

Laurent did not laugh, just as Damianos knew he wouldn’t. “That,” he said, “was awful.”

Damianos smiled. “I know. It was Kastor’s favorite joke. He heard it from a slave, I think, and he’d always tell it when my father had guests over.”

Neither of them said anything for a while. Damianos had almost forgotten what this was like, lying next to Laurent’s bed and staring up at a ceiling for hours. It had been so long, too long. He could not help but wonder if Laurent had missed this, too.

“I know another one,” Laurent said and went on to tell it.

*

True to his word, Laurent was already gone when Damianos woke up the next morning. They had stayed up talking for a long time, getting roughly a couple of hours of sleep, yet Damianos could not bring himself to regret it. He’d made Laurent snort once or twice with some of his jokes, and even though it was no laughter Damianos had felt accomplished and proud.

The price was this: a day’s ride with an aching back and eyes that felt like they had been made to stay closed.

By the time Damianos had made it downstairs to eat breakfast, most of Auguste’s command had already finished and was busy getting ready to leave. Auguste was talking to Jord, heatedly discussing something while pointing at a spot on the map that took up almost half the breakfast table. Huet, another one of Auguste’s guards, was also there, quietly listening to his king and frowning every once in a while.

Wishing to avoid the noise—everything was growing louder by the minute—Damianos stepped outside and headed towards the stables. He was tired and a headache was starting to form on the back of his skull, but he knew the second he was alone with his horse that both his weariness and pain would go away. He’d skipped breakfast but had managed to snatch two apples from a bowl on his way out, one for him and one for his horse.

He’d barely made it halfway across the courtyard when he heard them.

“—such a pretty little thing.”

“And the captain wouldn’t mind.”

With his brown, wild curls and his high-pitched voice, Aimeric was the easiest one to spot. He was being cornered by two men of the King’s Guard, judging by the colors of their clothes, and for every step he took back they made sure to take two.

“I’ve never fucked a highborn boy,” one of the guards said. “Have you?”

“No,” said the other. “Although I can tell this one here has fucked plenty of men like us.”

Aimeric shoved one of them, the tallest, away. “I haven’t fucked any pigs if that’s what you mean.”

That comment earned him a blow to the face. Aimeric stumbled backward, clutching his cheek, but he made no attempts to run. The boy had some guts to him, for he stood his ground even though they were two against one.

Damianos could not seem to get to them fast enough. He was less than fifteen steps away when he saw Laurent coming out of the stables. In his knee-high boots and tight, laced-up Veretian clothing, he looked like the picture of royalty. All that was missing was a crown upon his head. Or a circlet, perhaps.

Laurent saw Aimeric and the two guards, and for a second—a painfully long second—Damianos was convinced he would turn around and head back into the stables, ignoring the whole scene before him. It would not have been a very un-Laurent thing to do, especially considering that Aimeric was involved, but Damianos thought that there was a fine line between disliking someone and actively wishing them harm.

Of course, Laurent _had_ tried to murder Aimeric once.

Judging by Laurent’s expression, it seemed like he was questioning whether or not to step in. He stood against the stables doors, watching, overly aware that the three men had not seen him yet. If he were to leave Aimeric to his fate, no one but him would know about it. Laurent had not noticed Damianos, who was shielded from view by one of the big pine trees.

When one of Auguste’s guards stepped closer to Aimeric, cornering him against a tree, and felt him up through his pants, something in Laurent’s expression changed. His whole face darkened, mouth turning into a sour little dot. And just like that, he was moving forward, equal parts graceful and lethal.

He looked like a panther stalking its prey.

“I was not aware,” Laurent said, “that you had been relieved of your duties already.”

The guard who’d been touching Aimeric pulled back, straightening, and clasped his hands behind his back. With his head bowed and his shoulders taut with fear, he did not look as big or intimidating as he had mere seconds ago. The other man straightened too, bowing even lower than his comrade. His hands, hanging by his sides, were shaking.

“Your Highness,” one said, and Damianos had no way of knowing which one it was. He could not see their faces. “We were just—”

“Have I asked you what you were doing?”

“No, Your Highness.”

“Then why,” Laurent said slowly, “are you telling me?”

“I am sorry, Your Highness.”

Aimeric was still pressed against the tree, unmoving. He did not seem particularly excited or grateful to see Laurent there, and Damianos could not say he blamed him. Perhaps he thought Laurent was only enjoying himself and would soon leave, giving the guards a free pass to do as they pleased. Damianos would never allow that to happen, but Aimeric had no way of knowing that. He did not even know Damianos was there.

“The latrines are overflowing,” Laurent said.

The guards shared a look. “Your Highness?”

“There are shovels in the stables, close to the door. I trust you won’t get lost looking for them.”

“But that is the castellan's job, Your Highness.”

Laurent’s smile was like a snarl, all teeth and no sweetness. Like a panther’s, indeed. “And your job is what I say it is. If you are so incompetent that you cannot shovel shit out of a hole in the ground, you might as well leave the King’s Guard before we begin today’s ride to Barbin.”

The men did not need to be told twice what to do. They fled to the stables, not even daring to whisper to each other as they went, and disappeared inside, probably looking for the shovels Laurent had ordered them to fetch.

Aimeric had not relaxed one bit. If anything, he looked tenser than before. He ran a shaky hand over his disheveled clothes, trying to force the wrinkles out of them, and kept quiet as Laurent watched him.

When it became clear Laurent would not speak first, Aimeric said, “Thank you, Your Highness.”

“You,” Laurent started. He pursed his mouth, opened it, and then closed it again. Finally, he said, “Get out of my sight.”

Aimeric complied, walking so fast he was almost running. Damianos did not miss the way he looked back at Laurent as if he could not believe the Prince was not chasing after him.

From anyone else, it would hardly have been considered a nicety. But from Laurent…

Before he knew it, Damianos was moving forward and into Laurent’s field of vision. He did not stop walking until he could lean against the very tree Aimeric had been cornered into. Laurent did not seem surprised to see him, but Laurent had always been good at keeping his emotions off his face when he really wanted to.

“I knew you were standing there,” Laurent said, but Damianos knew it wasn’t true. The pitch of Laurent’s voice gave him away.

“I—” Damianos broke off. He could not stop staring at Laurent’s face.

 _I saw you last night_ , he wanted to say, _with the hounds._ Damianos would have said it if he’d been confident he could make Laurent understand, but the words seemed too small, too tight, even in Akielon. He thought: _there is no language for this_.

Had he ever felt this proud before? Surely he had. When his nephew had managed to half-slur, half-mumble his name, or when Nikandros had solved the problems the drought had brought to Delpha, he’d felt proud and happy. He’d been elated.

And yet this was different.

There was a warmth in his chest and it was spreading. It felt like an infection, leaving him feverish and on the verge of shivering with its intensity. Rationally, he knew he was being stupid. What Laurent had done could hardly be considered heroic. He’d been decent, that was all.

“I already fed your horse an apple,” Laurent said casually. He was staring at the fruits in Damianos’s hands. He was deflecting, steering the conversation away from what had just happened. “He’s beastly like his owner, though. Perhaps you should give him another one.”

Despite it being cloudy and damp and windy, Damianos felt as though he was standing in the sunlight, basking in it. He was weary and his back and head still hurt, but all of that seemed muffled and strangely unimportant. Laurent’s jabs, on the other hand, had never sounded so sweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! We are so close to the good, fluffy part of this story that I'm just... yeah. My notes keep getting more incoherent each week, I hope you've noticed that. Online school is sucking the life out of me but hey at least I haven't missed a deadline yet. YET.  
> \- The jokes are obviously not mine. They're actual ancient jokes (sort of) and I got them from [here](https://www.medievalists.net/2013/08/medieval-jokes/) and [here](https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-greece/an-ancient-greek-sense-of-humour/) Both are super fun articles, check them out if you can.  
> \- [Check out this little fic rec that I put together](https://thickenmyblood.tumblr.com/post/623007421351215104/hi-do-u-have-any-good-capri-fic-recs-ty) (people in this fandom are so talented wtf)  
> \- I'll post next chapter on Saturday!  
> -also, WTF i have been spelling Delfeur wrong all this time ?? my three brain cells have been plotting against me for months. Interesting.  
> Love you!


	18. Sixteen

**Sixteen**

Riding next to Damianos had its advantages, the most important one being that Laurent did not have to listen to Jord and Aimeric’s sugary conversation or Lazar’s dirty jokes. He _had_ to put up with Damianos’s incessant babbling and questions, but that soon proved to be not nearly as terrible as Laurent had expected. For every question Damianos asked him, Laurent got to ask another one in return.

“Jokaste,” Laurent said.

Damianos laughed. He’d been doing that a lot since they’d left Chastillon. “That is not a question.”

They were so far behind that it was impossible for the others to hear what they were talking about. Every once in a while, when Damianos’s laughter was particularly loud, one of Auguste’s guards would turn his head to look at them, but that was as close as anyone got to disturbing them. It was clear no one missed Laurent at the front, for Auguste had not commanded him to ride by his side and Lazar had already found a new companion to bother with his jests. Laurent could only hope Pallas was not as easily flustered as he appeared to be at first sight.

“Is she still living in the palace?”

“Yes,” Damianos said, looking at him strangely. He had been doing that a lot lately, too. “Is it my turn already?”

“No. Have you and her… reconciled?”

“Of course we—” Damianos broke off, laughing. He shook his head as if he could not believe the audacity Laurent possessed to have asked that question. To Laurent, it had seemed perfectly innocuous. They had been lovers, had they not? “The answer is no, we have not _reconciled_. She’s devoted to being a mother.”

Laurent snorted so hard his mare yelped. Running a hand over her back, he said, “And to being in your Council.”

“Ah, Auguste has been spilling my secrets then. Has he been reading my letters out loud to you all these years?”

“Bits of them,” Laurent replied before realizing how that’d make Auguste look. “It was not as though I was interested anyway.”

Damianos watched him stroke his mare. “You weren’t?”

Laurent had been interested, once. In the beginning, he’d tug on Auguste’s sleeve and force him to read entire paragraphs of Damianos’s letters to him, but soon his interest had wavered. He’d liked hearing about Akielon politics and how the kyroi were giving Damianos headaches, but that was all. Soon, when he’d realized Damianos only wrote _about_ him—asking after his health and activities to Auguste—but never _to_ him, Laurent decided he did not care much about anything the Akielon Prince had to say in his notes.

“I figured,” Laurent found himself saying, “that if you wanted me to know certain things, you’d have written to me about them.”

“I did write to you.”

“Once a year.”

“On your birthday,” Damianos said. The corners of his mouth were curling. “I did not want to force my tedious, horrible, and primitive handwriting on you.”

Thinking about Dion’s horrible handwriting, Laurent said, “Admittedly, it is not the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but you’re right. You did me a favor.”

“You could have written to me too,” Damianos said. Was that an accusation? It was hard to read Damianos’s face when his smile was wrinkling it in all the wrong places. “You didn’t, not even on my birthdays.”

Laurent shifted on his saddle, his thighs sore from the hours of riding. “I wrote to you,” he said quietly. “Once.”

Damianos’s smile died down slowly, but the scowl Laurent had been expecting to see in its place never came. The path they had taken had grown narrower, forcing their horses to ride even closer to each other, and so occasionally Damianos's foot would graze Laurent’s knee. Usually, Damianos apologized, but this time he remained quiet.

“Did your brother force you to?”

“Is that your question?”

“No,” Damianos said. And then, defeatedly, “Yes.”

Laurent remembered writing that letter. Auguste had delivered the news to him in person, waking him up so early the sun had not come out yet. He’d sat on Laurent’s bed, clutching a piece of paper, and for a while neither of them had said anything. The memory of that morning was still fresh in Laurent’s mind—the rabbit-like beating of his heart as he waited for Auguste to explain, the ink he’d spilled all over his desk in his haste to sit down to write, how he’d misspelled Theomedes’s name twice—but he could not recall what his words to Damianos had been.

Had he been kind? Laurent highly doubted it. Perhaps that’s why Damianos had not written back.

“He didn’t,” Laurent said. “I wrote it because I wanted to.”

“How old were you? Fifteen?”

Dryly, Laurent said, “Sixteen.”

“It’s hard to imagine you at that age,” Damianos said. “You’re…”

“I’m…?”

Damianos cleared his throat, glancing at the men almost a mile away from them and then back at Laurent. “It was nice of you,” he said, not answering Laurent’s question. He’d gotten better at deflecting.

Laurent focused on stroking his mare. She got fussy when left unattended for too long. “Not enough for you to write back.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me to. I thought it was simply a courtesy letter, like the ones I received from King Torgeir and most of the kyroi.” There was a slight pause in their conversation, a shifting of sorts. And then Damianos said, “Should I have written back?”

Laurent tsked. “You already asked your question. It’s my turn now.”

“But I—”

“You know the rules.”

Smiling, maybe even on the verge of laughing, Damianos said, “You’re quite fond of rules, aren’t you?”

Laurent ignored him. “Why did you come with us?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You’re a King. A new one, too. Unmarried, childless. You’re the last of your line, and yet you’ve decided to follow my brother into this trap with only one Akielon guard by your side. I know Nikandros did not want you to come.”

Damianos gave him a long look. “I’m not,” he said. “The last of my line, I mean. Kastor’s child lives.”

“He’s what, three years old? And he’s a traitor’s son. Do you really think they’d let Jokaste, a woman, rule Akielos until he’s of age?”

“Laurent.”

Laurent tilted his head a bit to avoid the sunlight stabbing his eyes. He thought back on the words he’d said and found those he sensed Damianos had not liked. “I did not mean to insult your brother.”

“I’m here as Auguste’s friend,” Damianos said. “And because I know he will win.”

“You’re lying. If you were so sure about his victory then you would not have bothered tagging along. In case it has slipped your mind, you’re here to help me escape.”

“Only if things go wrong.”

“Things will go wrong,” Laurent said. Damianos made a strange gesture with his hand, running two fingers over his shoulder as though wiping something off it. The Akielon sign against bad luck. “We both know it.”

Instead of arguing, Damianos said, “How did you know Nikandros was against me coming?”

“He seemed sulkier than usual. Why haven’t you followed his advice regarding your… status?”

“My status?”

“You told me the other night that he kept pestering you about getting married.” Laurent focused on holding his reins correctly, making sure he was not tugging at his mare’s head. They’d been riding for so long his fingers were growing numb. “Why haven’t you?”

Damianos looked away from him. Laurent had noticed this about him too, the way he seemed to grow shy whenever Laurent cursed or asked him about women. It was such a strange reaction, such an Auguste-like reaction, that Laurent could not understand it. In Arles, any courtier would have jumped at the chance of recounting his affairs, especially to the Prince. And yet Damianos seemed almost shy.

Damianos, the King of Akielos, who was rumored to have had a thousand lovers. Damianos, whom Laurent had seen in bed with two or three pets at a time years ago. Surely a person could not change so drastically in the course of four years.

“I do not wish to marry yet,” Damianos said. His words came slowly, like little pebbles being skipped into a river. One by one. “Nikandros doesn’t know about…” A pause, a struggle. “He wants me to marry and give Akielos an heir.”

Oh. “Why haven’t you told him?”

“It’s not your turn to ask.”

Laurent huffed. “But I—”

“You know the rules,” Damianos said, cutting him off. The brute. “Do you know why Aimeric’s here?”

Aimeric. Laurent glanced at him, several horses ahead, riding so close to Jord they might as well have been holding each other’s hands. It was disgusting. Laurent’s mouth moved fast, faster than his brain, and words were out before he could stop them.

“He’s pretty to look at,” Laurent said. “He keeps the men entertained. Especially Jord, as you can see.”

“I highly doubt Auguste brought him along as some sort of… pet.”

Laurent hid a yawn behind his hand. “I’ve long since stopped trying to understand anything Auguste does.”

“Jord and Aimeric are together, I take it?” Damianos asked. His voice, a few minutes ago relaxed and playful, was now strained. “How does that work?”

“Aimeric bends over and Jord—”

“That is not what I meant.”

Laurent regarded him for a second. Could it be…? “Why are you so flustered?”

“I’m not flustered,” Damianos half-said and half-snapped. “I find it strange, that is all.”

“Strange,” Laurent echoed, tasting each syllable as it rolled off his tongue. “Why would it be strange? They’re only fucking.”

“They have known each other since Aimeric was a child.”

Laurent tried to understand what Damianos meant. And failed. “So have you. Are you saying you wouldn’t fuck Aimeric, given the chance?”

“Of course not.”

“Why not?” Laurent pressed. He knew some men were pickier than others, but he’d seen some of the pets Damianos had lain with. Aimeric was prettier than a couple of them, by far.

“He’s a boy.”

“He’s seventeen.”

Damianos’s voice came back strained. “Laurent.”

“I don’t understand,” Laurent said. He usually enjoyed seeing Damianos like this—uncomfortable and awkward—but there was no pleasure in not knowing exactly what was making Damianos squirm. “Would you bed him if he was of age?”

“No.”

“Is it because he’s a man?”

“No,” Damianos said, more emphatically this time. “And I think you’ve broken the rules.”

“How have I broken them?”

“You’ve asked me multiple questions.”

Laurent snorted. “I did not force you to answer them. But fine, be that way. It’s your turn, I suppose.”

Damianos was so quiet for so long Laurent thought he had grown tired of their back and forth questioning. Perhaps he was thinking about Aimeric, about what it’d be like to fuck him, about why—

“Why haven’t you married?”

Digging his heels into the soft flesh of his mare’s stomach, purely out of shock, Laurent said, “Excuse me?”

Damianos let go of one of the reins, commanding his horse single-handedly to rub the back of his neck. The midday sun was beating down on them and the pine trees that had shielded them from it for the first few miles were long gone.

Laurent had come prepared; he was wearing a high-collared, long-sleeved shirt, tightly laced, and his was hair in a braid that shielded his neck from the sun. Damianos’s chiton was anything but adequate for riding in these conditions. If it weren’t for his dark skin, he would have been forced to stop already.

“It would have helped quiet down the rumors,” Damianos said. Ah, marriage. Laurent tried not to snort and failed miserably. Still, Damianos continued: “An arranged marriage, maybe. You’ve only turned eighteen, but I am sure at least the façade of being betrothed to a woman would have been enough.”

The game had gone on for too long. “I have no interest in marriage,” Laurent said. He sounded stiff and wrong even to his own ears.

“You offered Torveld your hand in marriage in exchange for an army.”

“I knew he’d say no.”

Damianos gave him another one of those long, strange looks. “Did you?”

That made Laurent pause. He tried not to, but in the end, he could not help but consider Damianos’s question. Had he known Prince Torveld would refuse him? Laurent was no fool when it came to numbers and alliances, and he knew that an army was not a common courtship gift.

Another question rose inside him, begging to be acknowledged. Had he asked for an army because he had wanted to help Auguste, or had he asked because he’d known it was the one thing Prince Torveld would not be able to give him?

As calmly as he could, Laurent said, “I’m tired of talking. Would you mind keeping your mouth shut for a few hours?”

Damianos laughed. All the animosity that had been building up between them over the last couple of questions evaporated instantly. “Well,” he said, shaking his head, “since you’ve asked so nicely…”

Laurent sat straight-backed in his saddle, eyes straight ahead, and waited for Damianos to break the silence between them. He didn’t, not even for one second, consider that Damianos would obey him.

Seconds turned into minutes and still, Damianos did not speak. Every once in a while Laurent would glance at him, just a peek out of the corner of his eye, and sometimes he'd catch Damianos staring back at him. It was infuriating.

Laurent focused on his mare. He made a list in his head of all the things he'd do when they had finally reached the border. First, he'd feed her and let her drink to her heart's content. Then he'd brush her down, maybe even clean her hoofs. Sometimes, the quiet stables were the only place where Laurent felt like he could think properly. In a stall with her, it was as though the whole world remained locked out, and Laurent liked not being a part of it. Sometimes he liked it a bit too much.

When his attention began to falter and he caught himself staring more openly and recklessly at Damianos, Laurent focused his mind on other things. He let go of the stables and thought of the food he'd eat for lunch when they finally stopped this infernal riding. He thought about how tonight he would sleep in a clean bed, away from Chastillon and its hundreds of ghosts, and his lungs expanded a little easier at the idea. He thought of the hounds he'd played with the day before and fought the wave of sadness that was threatening to pull him under. Last time he'd been to Chastillon, they had been pups, still attached to their mother and crying like babes. Last time he'd been there…

But Laurent would not allow himself to think of that. It was the middle of the day and he had a mare to ride. He was hungry. He wanted a real bed to sleep in tonight. He would not think of Chastillon anymore, for it was nothing but stones and trees miles away behind him. He would not think of the flickering of candles, of the ache in his knees. He would not.

A few minutes passed before Laurent realized the whole party had stopped and some of the men were getting off of their horses. There was a village—if one could call a cluster of houses and a village—and it seemed like Auguste had given the order to stop and rest there for a while.

Heavy-lidded, Laurent watched as Jord dismounted and held his horse in place by its reins, clearly waiting for something. A second later, Jord's free hand was holding Aimeric's, helping him get down as gracefully as possible from his own horse.

When Laurent finally looked away from them, he realized Damianos was also dismounting. "May I speak now?"

Laurent went still, his mare mirroring his movements. "If you must," he said, finding his voice only a second too late.

_I could get used to this_ , Laurent thought, looking down at Damianos. He looked dwarf-like. Laurent almost smiled.

“Do you know where we are?”

“On a road next to a village.”

“I can see that,” Damianos said. “How far away from the border are we?”

Laurent swung off his mare. His feet touched the earth and a jolt of pain traveled up his legs, from the soles of his feet to his thighs. The muscles were still asleep, a million needles digging into his skin, and Laurent had to hold onto the reins to avoid swaying.

“Far,” Laurent said. “We were not supposed to stop here.”

The village consisted of five dilapidated houses, a run-down tavern, and the four-stall stables. Laurent stayed behind, watching as his brother commanded the men to tie their horses to the nearest trees, bring them water, and then relieve themselves.

Laurent tossed his reins to Damianos, who caught them with ease. “Feed her.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Damianos said mockingly. “Anything else? I’m at your service.”

“That will be all.”

“Laurent—”

“Later,” Laurent said, already moving away and towards the village. “I need to speak to Auguste.”

The tavern smelled both like piss and freshly baked bread. Laurent took one look inside and decided he’d rather die than set foot in it, and he made sure to communicate with his eyes that decision to Auguste, who rose from his seat at the most crowded table and started making his way to the door. When Jord and Huet rose as well, Auguste dismissed them with a flick of his wrist.

“What are we doing here?” Laurent asked him as soon as Auguste was within hearing range. “You said we wouldn’t stop until we’d reached the border.”

“Some of the men needed to rest,” Auguste said. He was leaning against the grimy tavern door, uncaring of how easily dirt would cling to his clothes afterward. “You need to eat something too.”

“Some of the men,” Laurent echoed. “Do you mean Aimeric?”

Auguste was not good at hiding his surprise. “How did you—”

“He needed help getting off his horse.”

“Yes,” Auguste said. “He was feeling poorly.”

“So you decided to stop in this filthy village in the middle of nowhere when we still have half a day’s ride to the border because _Aimeric_ was feeling poorly.”

“He was not the only one,” Auguste said, and Laurent caught the lie without even looking for it. “I was tired as well.” Then, as an afterthought, “It’s not that filthy.”

_Why are you lying?_ Laurent thought. He almost asked it, his mouth already curling around the first word, but what came out instead was, “I want to talk to Jord.”

Auguste frowned. He was always frowning, even in Laurent’s dreams. “What about?”

“Am I not allowed to speak to him?”

“Of course you are,” Auguste said. “But I’d like to know why.”

The door behind Auguste swung open, making him lose his balance. Without thinking, Laurent reached out and grabbed him by the elbow, trying to steady him. The touch lasted only for a second and there was no skin involved—Auguste’s shirt was long-sleeved and the fabric thick—but Laurent felt the aftershocks of it all the same. He wanted to reach out and touch him again, if only for a second, but the guard had already stepped between them.

“—started it,” Huet was saying hastily. The words all blurred together, sentences bleeding into one another. “And now there are—”

Auguste pushed the door of the tavern open again and stepped inside, Huet trailing after him with words still spilling from his lips. Now that the door was no longer closed, Laurent could hear the insults, the sharp sound of ceramic breaking.

Even though the place still smelled foul, Laurent followed Auguste inside.

“Stop,” Auguste said, so calmly he might as well have been suggesting it. “Now.”

Wooden bowls were scattered all over the floor, food spilled everywhere. There was soup with chunks of soggy bread in it close to Lazar’s feet, and something that looked like vomit was spreading under the table. A jug of water had been broken—probably the sound Laurent had heard from outside—and so had one of the benches the men had been sitting on.

At Auguste’s command, everyone froze. Jord had been holding a guard against the table by the throat, pressing on it with his forearm, and now that he’d moved away the man was kneeling on the filth-covered floor and gasping for air.

Lazar was still sipping from his cup of wine, unperturbed by the scene before him. That did not surprise Laurent in the slightest, for he’d always known Lazar belonged in a place like this. Or in a pig’s pit.

“Your—Majesty,” the guard Jord had been holding managed to choke out. Now that Laurent got a good look at his face, it was obvious he was one of the men who’d cornered Aimeric back at Chastillon. “The boy—”

“He didn’t do anything,” Jord said.

Auguste tilted his head to the side, examining them all. “I want,” he said, “an explanation as to why you’ve trashed this lovely place.”

They all remained silent. Laurent was not surprised about this either. If one of them ratted the others out, he’d probably have his tongue cut off that very same night. It did not do to upset those you slept, ate, and shat with. Lazar had told him so more than once.

But the memory of Benoit’s screams was still fresh on everyone’s memory, and soon mouths began to open. Laurent imagined they were all thinking the same thing: losing one’s tongue was nothing compared to Auguste’s skill with a lash.

Jord spoke first. “This one here was making false accusations, Your Majesty.”

“Such as?” Auguste asked, glancing at the man by Jord’s feet. The silence dragged on. “What were you saying, Antoine?”

Antoine slowly rose from the floor. “The Captain’s boy was making eyes at me.”

Laurent’s eyes found Aimeric, standing against the wall next to Lazar. He looked as tense as he had that very same morning, his mouth closed shut and his clothes a mess. The front of his shirt was wet, and Laurent wondered if he’d been sick all over himself. The idea made Laurent smile.

“He caressed me under the table,” Antoine said. He was looking at Auguste, ignoring Jord’s murderous expression. “I swear on my life, on my honor—”

“ _You_ tried to fondle _him_ ,” Jord said. “I caught you red-handed.”

“Very well then,” Auguste said. He turned away from his them and walked towards Aimeric and Lazar, sidestepping food and wine as he went. “Is what Antoine said true, Aimeric?”

Aimeric screwed his eyes shut. His face was pale as bone. For a moment, Laurent was certain he was only opening his mouth to be sick. But then he said, “No.”

Laurent could barely contain his laughter. It had not sounded very convincing.

“Jord,” Auguste said into the heavy silence that had fallen over them all. “Your blade.”

It seemed like Jord still had some dignity left. He unclasped the dagger attached to his belt and handed it over to Auguste. Then, with practiced ease, his fingers found the pin that Auguste had gifted him years ago and began to unclasp it.

But Auguste stopped him. “Leave that on,” he said. “I have only asked for your blade.”

“Your Majesty—”

“Do you wish to resign?” Auguste asked briskly. He was beginning to lose his patience. When Jord shook his head, he said, “Then leave it on and stop talking.”

Antoine’s eyes were on the dagger. The handle was nothing special, cheap-looking even, but the blade looked sharp enough to slaughter a boar. Antoine took a step back when Auguste began to approach him, and then another.

“Give me your hand.”

“Please.”

Auguste flicked his wrist again, almost lazily, and Lazar and Huet stepped forward. “Hold him,” he said. “Put his hand on the table.”

Laurent wanted to speak but he knew better than to defy Auguste in front of others. Instead, he kept quiet, wishing he knew what his brother was thinking. A little voice inside his head told him that Auguste wouldn’t hurt one of his guards over Aimeric—the mere idea was simply preposterous—but as the seconds began to pass it became clear Auguste was not playing any games.

“Your Majesty,” Paschal said. He was the only one still sitting at the table. He’d gotten so good at blending in that Laurent had not noticed him. “Perhaps this is all a misunderstanding.”

“You heard Aimeric,” Auguste said, and the words came out strange. Like he had meant to say something else and decided against it at the very last second. And it was suddenly clear that there was something more between Auguste and Paschal than Laurent knew. “Since you seem so awfully concerned about him, you will tend to his wounds for the rest of our journey.”

Antoine was struggling between Huet and Lazar, trying to get his hand away from where it was being pressed against the wooden table. His fingers looked like worms, moving in every possible direction. At the mention of the word _wounds,_ he only began to thrash harder, and Laurent wondered how long it would take him to start begging.

Slowly, Auguste circled the table until he was standing opposite to Antoine, an expanse of wood between them. “If I were you,” he said, “I’d stop moving so much. It’s only a finger or two I want.”

“I swear I’m telling the truth. He touched me first, he—” Antoine stopped, perhaps realizing Auguste would not be swayed so easily. Looking at Aimeric with wild eyes, he said, “Tell him. Tell him the truth. You put your hand on my—”

_On my knee? On my thigh? On my cock?_ The possibilities were endless, and Laurent wished Auguste had waited a little longer to press the tip of the blade to Antoine’s pinky. Would he actually hurt him, or was this all for show? Laurent’s pulse quickened although he could not understand why. Antoine deserved this.

And then Aimeric stumbled forward, said, “I started it.”

The silence that followed was very heavy, broken only by the pitiful sounds Antoine was making. When Auguste lifted the blade it came away red and dripping.

“You don’t have to lie for him,” Jord said, moving closer to Aimeric. “I saw him—”

“I touched him first,” Aimeric said. He was gripping the edge of the table as if to keep himself steady. “He was only reciprocating.”

Auguste was holding himself very still. He had not yet given the order to release Antoine.

Would it be like this, Laurent wondered, at the trial? If so, their uncle would win without much trouble.

The smell of piss, vomit, and blood was too much for Laurent. He knew there was no point in speaking up, for Auguste would not be happy about anything he had to say. Jord’s mouth was already moving, whispering something into Aimeric’s ear, and Lazar and Huet were sharing a look over Antoine’s head.

Not wanting to see what would happen next, Laurent turned around and left, making sure to slam the door on his way out as hard as he could.

He spotted Pallas walking out of the stables, blissfully unaware of everything that had happened since they had dismounted. Laurent thought about warning him, even opened his mouth to do so, and then didn’t.

“Your Highness,” Pallas said in Veretian, heading towards the very same place Laurent had just escaped.

“Where’s your king?”

When Pallas pointed at the stables behind them, Laurent sidestepped him and continued to walk in a straight line, trying his hardest not to break into a sprint.

Damianos was closing the door to one of the stalls when Laurent barged into the stables. He turned around, probably expecting to see Pallas, and smiled a bit when he saw it was Laurent approaching him.

“She’s prickly,” Damianos said. He raised his hand and showed Laurent a slightly reddened finger. “She tried to bite me while I was feeding her. You’re lucky Nikandros wasn’t here, or else he’d have challenged her to a duel for the offense she’s caused me.”

At the sight of Damianos’s hand, Laurent stopped walking. He heard Antoine’s voice inside his head—a single _please_ —and had to hold onto the door of the stall to keep from swaying.

“And she would have won,” Laurent said, eventually. Once he was sure his legs would not give out from under him, he started walking again. “Imagine how shameful that would be, losing to a mare.”

“A Veretian mare,” Damianos said. He paused, looking at Laurent’s face as if searching for something. “Are you all right?”

_Yes._ The word sat on Laurent’s tongue. He knew all he had to do was push it out, get it past his teeth, and Damianos would be appeased. And yet he could not bring himself to say it. Lying to Damianos had been so much easier four years ago, as easy as breathing. Now, with each day they spent in each other’s company, Laurent was finding it harder to deceive him, harder to remember why he needed to in the first place.

“Aimeric has been causing trouble,” Laurent said slowly, carefully. The smell of hay was stronger here, next to the open stall, but it was not enough to make him forget the stench of the tavern. “As always.”

“I take it he’s the reason Auguste decided to stop here.”

“I don’t want to talk about Aimeric,” Laurent said. “Or my brother.”

Damianos smiled fully. His dimple came out, and for a second Laurent forgot not to stare at it. “Come here. I’d like to show you something.”

Laurent followed him into one of the stalls. Damianos’s horse neighed when he felt them walk in but otherwise remained busy lapping at the bucket of water in front of him. Laurent had petted him before, back at Chastillon, but this felt different. Damianos had not been there with him at that time.

“I saw your mare’s when I fed her,” Damianos said. “I had Pallas assist me, at first. It was not as easy as I thought it’d be.”

It took Laurent a moment to understand what he was talking about. Following his gaze, Laurent studied Damianos’s horse for a while, until his eyes found the braids. They were simple, most of them asymmetrical and not at all praise-worthy. In the minutes that followed, Laurent allowed himself to imagine Damianos’s hands, calloused and stupidly big, trying to get the plaits right.

Only because he’d seen them on Laurent’s mare.

“They,” Laurent said and stopped.

“It’s all right,” Damianos said. His shoulder brushed against Laurent’s, warm and solid. “They’re horrible.”

Laurent reached out to touch one, aware of the slight twitching of his fingers. “This one is adequate.”

Damianos pursed his mouth. “That one is Pallas’s.”

“I see.”

“You’re not laughing,” Damianos commented after a moment. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nikandros.”

Damianos stilled beside him. “Nikandros?”

“He braids his hair,” Laurent said. He trailed a finger over the ugliest plait. “I’m surprised he never taught you how to do it.”

“I suppose I never had a good enough reason to learn. In Akielos, braiding hair is a woman’s skill.”

“Is Nikandros a woman then?”

Damianos let out a surprised laugh. The sound did something to Laurent’s stomach, a clenching of sorts. “I have never seen him wearing a dress if that’s what you’re asking.”

“A chiton is a dress,” Laurent said, “of sorts.”

“I remember…”

“Yes?”

Damianos leaned against one of the walls of the stall. He looked bigger here, in this tiny and cramped space, but for once Laurent did not care about having to crane his neck a bit to look at him.

“I remember when you convinced me that Jord was interested in chitons.”

“You brought him one,” Laurent said. “He told me about it.”

“Did he ever wear it?”

“Of course not. I believe he gave it to one of the cooks to use as a wiping rag.”

It was easy for Laurent to pretend, like this. With the door of the stall closed and the neighing of the horses all around him, Laurent felt as though he had not left Arles. Even the tavern felt like a distant reality now, as though Laurent had not witnessed it first hand.

He’d chosen to come here, of all places. He could have walked around the village, maybe even talked to some of the commoners. That would have made Auguste proud of him, for once. And yet here he was, hiding in the stables like a child. _Why_ had he come here?

Why had he gone into Damianos’s rooms the night before?

“I could teach you,” Laurent said, carefully looking away from Damianos’s face as he spoke.

“Teach me what, exactly?”

“How to braid hair.”

“I,” Damianos said, and stopped.

“I’m sure you’ll be terrible at it,” Laurent said, trying to ignore the clenching of his stomach at the thought of Damianos refusing him. He should have eaten something before fleeing the tavern. “But it’ll be fun for me to watch you try and fail.”

After what felt like an eternity of silence, Damianos opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “I’m good with my hands.”

“Oh?”

“I’m—” Damianos stopped. He kept pausing every now and then, and Laurent was finding it hard not to be annoyed. “I have been told so. That I am good, I mean.”

“With your hands.”

“Yes.”

“By whom?”

Damianos let out a shaky laugh. He sounded boyishly nervous. “It doesn’t matter. I’d like you to teach me, is what I meant.”

“Now?”

“If you’re willing.”

Laurent allowed Damianos to come closer. Without speaking, Laurent showed him how to do a simple braid—three strands, not too tight—and then stepped back to let Damianos try to do it himself. His fingers were thicker than Laurent’s but just as graceful. There was no clumsiness in his movements; Pallas had taught him the basics.

“Like this?” Damianos asked, grabbing the wrong section of hair and twisting it.

“No,” Laurent said. “You need to do the right one first. The left one goes last.”

Damianos grabbed the right end, twisted it, then said, “What now?”

“That’s too tight.”

“Then how do I make it looser?”

Laurent stepped close again. His fingers brushed over Damianos’s, guiding them in the right direction. Damianos’s hand felt scaldingly hot under his, and Laurent found himself reluctant to pull away from the touch.

“Like this,” Laurent said when the braid was done. It was not as good as Pallas’s, but it was definitely better than the others. “You aren’t bad.”

“Oh?”

“With your hands.”

Damianos did not answer. His fingers moved quickly, and when he was done he gave the horse’s back a light pat. That braid turned out messier, too loose to hold itself together, and Laurent had to bite down on his lip, hard, to keep from laughing.

“You’re laughing at me,” Damianos said, tilting his head to look at Laurent. “I never laughed at you when you mispronounced words in Akielon.”

“That’s because I didn’t.”

“You did. _Dice_ , for example.”

Laurent frowned. “Dice,” he said in Akielon.

“No. You need to lisp a bit towards the end.” Damianos repeated the word for him, slower this time. Laurent watched his mouth move, tongue darting out, pink and wet, to run across his lower lip. “You try.”

“Dice.”

Damianos bit back a laugh. Without any warning, he pressed his thumb to Laurent’s lower lip. “Here,” he said. “You make it sound so sharp. It’s just a lisp.”

Laurent kept his mouth carefully shut. If he spoke, even to ask Damianos to remove his hand, there was a small chance his tongue would brush against the pad of Damianos’s thumb, something he wished to avoid at all costs. Finally, Damianos moved his finger away.

It took Laurent an embarrassingly long time to recover. “Dice.”

“That’s better.”

“Better than your braiding skills,” Laurent said, although his usual venom was lacking. He did not know why that bothered him. “We should go now before they send a search party to find us.”

Damianos held the door of the stall open for Laurent, said, “Is there anything I should know before walking out of here?”

_Auguste cut a man’s finger off. Aimeric is a slut._ “No,” Laurent said easily. “I can’t think of anything.”

*

The rest of their ride to the border was quiet and uninterrupted. They didn’t stop again at any villages, not even the ones where people gathered by the side of the road to greet their King.

Antoine, claiming to be in too much pain to hold his reins properly, had been ordered by Auguste to ride with Huet. Lazar and Jord rode side by side, not talking. It seemed like Jord was not in the mood for jokes.

And Aimeric. Laurent felt giddy with happiness as he watched him, straight-backed and obviously miserable, riding next to Auguste at the front of the line. He looked like a child whose favorite toy had been taken away after a scolding.

_Cut out his tongue_ , Laurent had suggested. Auguste, soft-hearted and stupid, had chosen this instead: a chiding so gentle it was like a slap on the wrist. Not for the first time since their journey had begun, Laurent told himself that his brother’s chances of winning this trial were fickle.

Uncle would have cut out Aimeric’s tongue. His head, as well, for good measure.

*

The camp had already been set when they arrived, courtesy of Lord Guillaume of Toutaine. He was a short man and, overly-aware of his height, he wore high-heeled boots that sank in the mud as he walked, giving the impression to anyone who looked that he was, in fact, related to snails. Auguste, of course, found him amicable and kind-hearted. Laurent thought he was a pompous, self-righteous bastard.

There was a total of twenty tents, all of them cream-colored except for Auguste’s, which was blue. They had all been arranged in a tight circle, facing a pyre that Laurent supposed was a bonfire. Trees surrounded the camp, blocking even the road from view, and they were so tall Laurent had to strain his neck to find the sun.

Lord Jasque of Marches had brought twenty days worth of provisions with him. He claimed that he did not expect the trial—or, as most of Auguste’s supporters liked to call it, the ruse—to last longer than a week, but that he’d rather be safe than sorry. There were crates full of fruit, which would have to be eaten first or else they’d go to spoil, cheese, dried meat, and bread. The wine barrels—all six of them—were being carefully watched by three soldiers to prevent the men from drinking between meals.

Lord Peire’s contribution consisted of thirty-one pets and even more wine. _To celebrate your victory_ , he’d told Auguste. Varenne’s vineyards were not the best of Vere, as everyone knew, but its pets were famous for being physically peculiar. An exclusive tent had been set up for them on the far west end of the camp, and it was being as carefully watched as Lord Jasque’s wine barrels.

“Absolutely not,” Auguste said, not even looking at Laurent. He was in the process of taking off his riding boots.

“He doesn’t know you’re here yet,” Laurent argued. “He won’t be expecting you.”

“Then I’ll go and announce myself. There’s no reason why you should come with me.”

Laurent’s thighs felt like they were on fire from all the riding he’d done that day, and his head had not stopped throbbing either since he’d managed to get away from the Lords and their incessant blabber. His feet hurt with every step he took, and yet he forced himself to pace inside the tent. He knew that if he stayed still he’d collapse. And that was something he could not afford to do right now.

“I’m your brother. Don’t you think my absence will make you look suspicious?”

Auguste peeled off one of his socks, threw it on the floor, and said, “Suspicious?”

“Why else would I be here, if not to offer you political advice and be your moral support? You cannot keep me cooped up in a tent for a fortnight and—”

“The trial won’t last a fortnight.”

“—expect people not to whisper about it. They’ll think you’ve only brought me here to sit still and look pretty.”

Auguste gave him a long look, his other sock dangling from his hand. “And why else are you here, Laurent?”

“They’ll think I’m your pet.”

“They think that already,” Auguste said calmly. “I won’t allow you to be in his presence, least of all when it is completely unnecessary. Do not argue with me on this.”

“Or what?” Laurent said. His weariness receded for a moment, giving room to the frustration he’d been hoarding since they left Arles. “You’ll cut off my finger?”

Barefoot, Auguste rose from the pallet he’d been sitting on. Three long strides later, he was standing in front of Laurent, stopping his pacing by blocking the way. “This is not a game.”

“I never said it was.”

“You’re acting like it is,” Auguste said. His hand met Laurent’s shoulder, and the touch was not gentle. “Has it occurred to you that the second he knows you’re here, he’ll try to use you against me? If you followed me here thinking I’d let you roam the place as you wish then I am sorry to say you were mistaken in your assumptions.”

Laurent blinked. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You are not to leave this camp,” Auguste said, fingers digging into Laurent’s flesh. If he kept it up, Laurent would have a bruised shoulder in the morning. “I mean it. I do not care how badly you want to see him.”

_I do not want to see him_ , Laurent thought. “You cannot stop me from attending the trial.”

“Why must you always defy me?”

“It is my duty as your brother to let you know when you are being stupid.”

“I don’t have time for this today.” Auguste let go of him, found the other pair of boots he had requested, and bent down to slip them on. “Go,” he said. “We’ll speak again when you’ve decided to stop playing games.”

“I’m not—”

Auguste straightened. Still one boot to go. “I need to speak to Aimeric. If you don’t leave now, I’ll have Jord drag you out.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Laurent said, sounding like a petulant child. In his head: _I dare you, I double dare you._

“All right,” Auguste said. Simple, succinct, and very unlike him. He walked towards the open tent flaps, stuck his head out, and called Jord’s name once. He received no answer that Laurent could hear. “Very well then.”

Mockingly, almost smiling, Laurent said, “Have you lost your dog? Perhaps he ran away.”

Auguste did not answer. He walked back to where Laurent was standing and grabbed his arm, fingers curling around Laurent’s shoulder in an iron grip. Laurent tried to resist, at first, but soon it became obvious to both of them that Auguste was stronger, and so Laurent stopped struggling. He let himself be dragged across the tent and then, at last, pushed outside with a hard shove.

“Lazar,” Auguste called, and this dog did answer.

Lazar gingerly moved away from the wine barrels, where he’d been talking to some of Lord Jasque’s men. He did not look drunk, much to Laurent’s disappointment. Drunk Lazar was always funnier and easier to distract.

“Your Majesty.”

“Where’s Jord?”

“The Captain is indisposed,” Lazar said. Then, begrudgingly, “But if there is anything I can assist you with—”

“There is. Escort Laurent back to his tent and stand guard outside. Make sure he does not leave.”

Lazar nodded once. He turned to Laurent and, pulling a face, said, “Your Highness.”

“You know,” Laurent said to Auguste, “I think a break would do Aimeric good. There are over thirty pets in this camp to choose from, there’s no need to have Jord’s scraps any longer.”

Auguste’s mouth twitched once, twice. “Get him away,” he said, looking at Lazar. “I won’t ask again.”

Since Lazar was not drunk, Laurent did not even bother trying to convince him that it’d be fun to ignore Auguste’s orders. Instead, they walked in silence past the Lords’ tents and around the bonfire.

Laurent’s tent had been set up, strategically, next to Damianos’s. It was smaller than Auguste’s yet more spacious than the ones the guards had to share. All in all, Laurent knew better than to complain. Lord Guillaume might have looked and moved like a snail, but Laurent did not want to anger him. These, as Auguste so often liked to remind him, were turbulent times. Even jokes were off-limits.

Earlier that day when they had just arrived, Laurent had been able to see the faint outlines of a castle’s tower over the treetops that surrounded his tent. Now that the sun was setting and the sky was turning a purple color, the castle was gone as if it had never existed in the first place.

Laurent slipped inside the tent, not bothering to say anything to Lazar. He had no wine to bargain with, no food. What could he offer Lazar in exchange for his own freedom? After what had happened at the tavern, Laurent knew none of the men in the King’s Guard would disobey Auguste’s orders so openly.

He’d barely made it past the entrance before realizing there was someone else inside, snooping through his things.

For the first couple of seconds, Laurent said nothing. He watched as Damianos thumbed through one of his books, half-bent over the table—the only piece of furniture in the tent beside Laurent’s pallet. Damianos’s chiton had ridden up, exposing more skin than usual. The back of his thighs was on full display, and Laurent’s first reaction was to look away.

And then he looked again, his eyes not quite obeying his brain.

“What are you doing here?” Laurent asked, wanting Damianos to shift so his stupidly oversized thighs would not be a problem anymore.

Damianos, however, did not move an inch. With his back still turned to Laurent, he said, “As it turns out, there isn’t much to do in a Veretian camp when you’re not Veretian.”

Laurent walked over, circling the table so he could look at Damianos’s face. “You’re bored.”

“A bit,” Damianos said. His hand was splayed over one of the pages, keeping the book wide open. He noticed Laurent looking at it. “It’s in Akielon.”

“Well, it is a book about Akielon history.”

“Why did you bring it with you?”

“To read it, obviously.”

Damianos lifted an eyebrow. “For the first time?”

Ah, so he had noticed the scribbled notes tucked between some of the pages. “You can borrow it if you’d like. Although… do you even know how to read?”

“You know I do.” Damianos pushed himself up and away from the table, straightening, and Laurent could not help but think of how his chiton must have gone back to covering the usual bits of skin. “Not as well as you, admittedly, but well enough.”

Not expecting the compliment, Laurent’s insult withered in his mouth.

Damianos nodded towards the entrance where Lazar was muttering to himself. “I take it you’re grounded?”

Laurent waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Auguste is being disagreeable.” A pause. He watched Damianos watch him. “Do you think he’s fucking Aimeric?”

“Lazar?”

“Auguste.”

“I— _why_ —”

“I think he is,” Laurent said. Telling someone about it felt liberating in a way he had not been expecting. All their journey, from the second they had left Arles, Laurent had been thinking about this. A pebble in his boot, always there, always demanding to be acknowledged. “He brought Aimeric here without a real reason and had a little outburst this morning over precious Aimeric’s virtue.”

“A little outburst,” Damianos repeated. “He cut one of his guard’s finger off.”

“Only the tip,” Laurent said. “And it was the pinky.”

“So it does not count?”

“No.” In the same breath, Laurent added, “Don’t you find it strange? I know you said you wouldn’t fuck him, but Aimeric’s looks might be the only good thing about him.”

Damianos stared at him for a moment. The table between them seemed to stretch, widening. “You’re serious.”

“Perhaps he’s been using Jord as a cover,” Laurent said. Then, after thinking about it for a couple of seconds, “Or maybe Aimeric’s fucking both of them.”

“Laurent.”

“Yes?”

Damianos’s playful tone seemed diluted. “Do you really think your brother would bed Aimeric? Think about what you’re saying.”

Laurent thought about it. “Does that mean you _don’t_ think he’s fucking Aimeric?”

“Of course he’s not—He has bigger problems to worry about.”

“Exactly.” Laurent walked over to his pallet and sat down. It was even worse than Damianos’s bed at Chastillon. “Which brings us back to my question: why is Aimeric here?”

Damianos opened his mouth and closed it. He moved closer to the pallet but did not sit down next to Laurent. “Have you asked Auguste?”

“A billion times, naturally.”

“He must have a reason,” Damianos said but he sounded less confident than before. Laurent knew that if he stayed quiet, Damianos would feel compelled to add something. And he did. “I’ve wondered…”

“About Aimeric?”

To Laurent’s surprise, Damianos shook his head. “About Paschal.”

_So have I_ , Laurent wanted to say. He lay down across the pallet instead.

“I asked him,” Damianos said, “if he was here as a physician.”

“Paschal hasn’t been Auguste’s physician for years.”

“Then why—”

“It’s about the trial,” Laurent said. “And yes, I’ve asked Auguste about it.”

“A billion times?” Damianos asked. He stood by the edge of Laurent’s bed, looking down at him as Laurent looked up at the ceiling of the tent. “Let me guess, he did not tell you.”

“You should speak to him. He values your opinion.”

Damianos sat, very slowly, next to Laurent. Their thighs brushed for a second before Damianos pulled away. “He values your opinion too.”

“He does not,” Laurent said easily. Knowing Damianos would try to argue, he added, “You should tell him he’s being a fool. Sending a herald to announce his arrival is—”

“Smart,” Damianos said. “You know it is.”

Laurent knew it was. “Yes, but he won’t let me attend the trial.”

Beside him, Damianos shifted. A minute later he lay down next to Laurent, eyes fixed on the ceiling. He smelled like oils and hay. Laurent continued to stare at the damp spot above their heads, paying him no mind.

“You attending the trial was never part of the deal,” Damianos said after a long time. “He only promised to let you come with him.”

“Ah, yes. I suppose I should be grateful to him for letting me stay in a tent all day with nothing to do. And then he wonders why people think I’m his catamite.”

“Auguste’s catamite would not have a tent of his own,” Damianos said. It was a good argument. “Why do you want to go so badly? It’ll be boring.”

“Clearly,” Laurent said, “you have never met my uncle.”

“You know I haven’t.”

“Boring is not a word I’d use to describe him.”

Damianos turned his head, cheek against the mattress, to look at Laurent. Laurent continued to stare up at the ceiling.

“I thought we were talking about the trial,” Damianos said. “Not your uncle.”

“What other words have I been mispronouncing?” Laurent turned his head to return Damianos’s gaze. “In Akielon, I mean. Besides _dice_.”

Damianos either did not realize Laurent’s deflection or simply did not care enough to point it out. In Laurent’s opinion, it was probably the first option. “It has been a long time since I’ve heard you speak my language. I don’t think I remember all your mistakes.”

“Mistakes?” Laurent asked in careful Akielon. His tongue resisted at first, struggling against the sharpness of it. “There were not many, I’ll warrant. Or else you would have remembered them.”

“Doesn’t memory work the other way around?” Damianos asked. Laurent wanted to throttle him; his Akielon would never sound like that. “The less there is of something, the easier it is to—”

“Tumbril,” Laurent said. “That one has always given me trouble.”

Damianos laughed, as Laurent knew he would. “Say it again.”

“Tumbril.”

“ _Tum_ —bril.”

Laurent blinked. “Tumbril.”

“No. You need—”

“A lisp?”

“—to take your time saying it,” Damianos told him. “Slower. _Tum-bril_.”

“You’re a terrible teacher,” Laurent said, rolling onto his side. It was easier to look at Damianos that way. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

Damianos smiled. His cheek was still pressed against the mattress, one eye closed and the other looking at Laurent intently. “ _Teacher_.”

“Oh.”

“You need to relax your mouth,” Damianos said. “Or else you will always have an accent.”

“I do not mind having one.”

“I do not mind either. But yours is so thick it makes some words unrecognizable.”

Laurent huffed. He tried to relax his lips, said, “Teacher.”

“That’s better.”

“Tumbril.”

Damianos laughed, burying his face into the mattress to muffle the sound. The hairs that grew on the nape of his neck were curlier than the locks that framed his face, and for a second Laurent thought of tugging at them. That would shut him up.

“I hope you choke on your own spit,” Laurent said, “and die.”

“If anyone is choking it’s you,” Damianos said. He shifted again, making the pallet under them creak, its wood cheap and not prepared to hold their weight. Then, Damianos tugged at one of the laces of Laurent’s vest. “I don’t understand how you can breathe.”

“I simply inhale and exhale.”

Damianos ignored his answer. “Auguste does not dress like this. So…”

“Elegantly? Tastefully?”

“Tightly,” Damianos said. “Isn’t it uncomfortable?”

Laurent felt his face contort in surprise before he could stop it. Auguste had never noticed. “No,” he lied. “It’s a matter of style.”

“You sound like your brother when he talks about—”

“—his beard,” Laurent said. They stared at each other for a moment and smiled. Damianos’s grin was amused, but Laurent liked to think his own was more sardonic. “It’s a girl, by the way. I asked him what her name is but he refused to admit he’s named her at all.”

“How do you know it’s a ‘she’ then?”

Involuntarily, Laurent’s smile grew bigger. “I caught him talking to her once while he was trimming her. It. Whatever.”

Damianos pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes, laughing. “What—what was he saying?”

“‘ _Oh dear, it’s only a trim, don’t worry. I’d never hurt my girl, don’t—_ ’ Stop laughing, I can’t concentrate.”

But it seemed like Damianos could not stop. He tried, at first, to stifle his laughter with his hand, and when that did not work he shifted and pressed his face against the bedding again. His shoulders were shaking, the broad expanse of his back a sight Laurent could not look away from. Laurent remembered, vaguely, a time in his childhood when he had wanted to flay that very same skin.

Damianos mumbled something. When he realized Laurent had not understood him, he repeated, “I’ve told him it looks hideous. _She_ , I mean.”

“She does. It’s disgusting, but he won’t listen to reason.”

“He seems…”

Laurent stiffened, hearing the slight hesitancy in Damianos’s voice, a change in the rhythm of their conversation.

“He seems reluctant to receive any advice.”

“And you’ve only now realized this?” Laurent asked. “He’s only brought with him two advisors, although I doubt he listens to them.”

“He’s brought us,” Damianos said, as though that was a detail Laurent could have forgotten about. “I suppose we’ll simply have to trust him on this.”

“Trust him,” Laurent echoed. “And run away when he fails.”

“He won’t fail. The trial—”

“—is a mockery. Auguste should have picked war.”

Damianos sat up on the bed, abruptly enough that Laurent had no time to not look surprised. “That’s easy to say when you’ve never been to war yourself.”

Laurent slowly sat up as well. “And you have?”

“I was with my father before the peace treaty was signed at Marlas. I saw plenty of men die before Auguste decided—” Damianos cut himself off. “Before Auguste managed to convince my father to stop the bloodshed. War is not what books paint it out to be.”

“I’d rather watch him fall like that, honorably,” Laurent said, “than have him kneel before my uncle to have his head cut off.”

Damianos’s frown deepened. It was hard to remember that seconds earlier he’d been laughing. “Hundreds would die. Are you saying that wouldn’t bother you in the slightest?”

“Those men have an obligation to my brother. They have sworn an oath of fealty to him, they are simply vassals—”

“Is that how you think of Jord?” Damianos asked. He sounded displeased, although Laurent could not understand why. “Or Lazar. Are they ‘simply vassals’?”

Confused, Laurent said, “Yes.” And then, “Men die all the time. Why should war make martyrs out of the dead?”

Damianos gave him a long look. “You do not mean this.”

“I do,” Laurent said, more forcefully than before. “And besides, Jord and Lazar can fend for themselves, they’re hard to kill. They aren’t fishermen or—or—”

“Do fishermen deserve to die in your brother’s war, then?”

“He is everything I have,” Laurent said. He thought of Timon’s father. Of Timon. Suddenly, fishermen did not seem like the greatest argument. “I’d trade any life for his.”

“These are lives you’re talking about,” Damianos said, “not pieces in a chess game with your uncle.”

Laurent’s chest tightened. “You’re wrong. We are on my uncle's board and these men are all his pieces, even you.” _Even me_. The words got stuck in Laurent’s mouth. “The rules of chess are easy: defend the King. The other pieces don’t matter, they never have.”

Damianos, who’d been sitting close enough for Laurent to touch all this time, moved away. He was on his feet in a second, his sandals hitting the ground with a smacking sound. Laurent followed his movements with his eyes, trying to understand why Damianos’s shoulders looked so tense, his fists so clenched.

“Then each time you move one of them, you can congratulate yourself on how much like him you are.”

“Like who?”

“Like your uncle.”

Laurent forced himself to breathe through the blow. It was harder than he’d anticipated. “Get out.”

Damianos did not move. It was strange: a minute earlier he’d been walking away from the bed, away from Laurent, and yet now he seemed hesitant. Regretful. He was looking at Laurent’s face, but Laurent was not worried—there was nothing there Damianos could read.

“You dare lecture me on decency?” Laurent asked calmly. He was finally beginning to understand what this was about. “You, an Akielon?”

“Laurent—”

“You keep slaves,” Laurent said, ignoring Damianos’s expression entirely. “Is a slave not a man, Damianos?”

“That is a different matter altogether.”

“How exactly is it different? In your barbaric society, men are forced into slavery and spend their entire lives in shackles. If you commanded them to go to war, they would have no option but to obey. In fact, I distinctly remember—”

Damianos was shaking his head, lips parting to protest.

“—that slaves fought in the war, four years ago. My brother and I discussed it. We thought you barbaric and cruel. And entitled. _You_ dare speak to me about the importance of lives? _You_ , a slave owner, the King of a society built on forced labor.”

“I,” Damianos said, and stopped. His voice failed him.

“Congratulations. Your show of compassion rings false.” Laurent stood. He pointed an unwavering finger to the entrance of the tent. “Get out. I won’t ask again.”

Damianos made no move to leave. “Is that why you would not let them dress you?”

Laurent faltered for a second, his confusion getting the best of him. “What are you—”

“In Ios. You would not let the slaves dress you in the mornings or bring you food throughout the day. I remember…”

“I said get out.”

“You also said you would not ask me again.” Damianos tilted his head. “If you truly wanted me gone, you would have called for Lazar already.”

Looking straight into Damianos’s eyes, Laurent called loudly, “Lazar.”

Lazar entered the tent, a cool breeze following him inside. “Yes, Your—” He paused, eyes falling on Damianos for the first time. “What—I mean, Your Highness. Exalted.”

“King Damianos wishes you to escort him back to his tent. I’m afraid he’s a bit lost, you see. Veretian campsites are not his specialty.”

Lazar looked between them. “I have orders from your brother not to leave you alone, Your Highness.”

“I don’t need escorting,” Damianos said. “And there is no need for you to remain here, Lazar. As you can see, the Prince is not alone.”

It was clear to Laurent that Lazar was trying very hard not to roll his eyes. Lazar stood in front of them, his mouth pursed, waiting for a clear order.

“Escort him,” Laurent said.

“Leave,” Damianos said.

Lazar’s mouth twitched. “I—”

“I’m your Prince.”

“And I’m a King. In the royal hierarchy, I’m higher up.”

“A foreign King,” Laurent said icily. “Lazar, escort him to his tent or I’ll have one of your fingers cut off.”

Lazar shifted uncomfortably. “Dinner is almost ready. Perhaps I could escort both of you to the—”

“Yes,” Damianos said. “We’d appreciate that. Is the King still busy?”

“He’s with the Lords, waiting for the herald to return. I believe they’re eating dinner by the fire tonight. Exalted.”

The herald. Auguste had sent him, after all. Laurent refused to feel hurt over it; he knew it had been the right decision.

“I won’t be eating dinner tonight,” Laurent announced. His stomach complained, but Laurent ignored it. “And Lazar, if you disobey one of my orders again, I’ll have you flogged. Publicly.”

Lazar, who had been hearing that threat from Laurent for over four years, simply nodded. He waited for Damianos to move, trying to keep his expression impassive, and rubbed a hand over his face when Damianos did not even take a step.

“I don’t think I’ll have dinner tonight either,” Damianos said.

_Fuck you_ , Laurent thought. And then again, _fuck you, fuck you, fuck you_. “Fine,” he said instead. “Let us both go to dinner. Lazar, lead the way.”

Lazar tilted his head back slightly, eyes to the ceiling, and sighed. “Yes, Your Highness.”

*

Dinner that night consisted of broth and bread, much to everyone’s disappointment. Lord Guillaume kept insisting that supper should always be light and warm, like a new lover’s kiss. Laurent added _cheap_ to the long list of insults he had come up with regarding the Lords of the north.

Auguste, sitting across the bonfire from him, sipped his broth and frowned very often. Lord Jasque was talking to him incessantly, not at all aware that Auguste was not listening to a single word that was coming out of his mouth. Talking to Auguste when he was eating was always a stupid decision.

Laurent stared at his bowl of broth for a long time, watching the steam rise from it and curl into the wind. He was hungry, but the idea of lifting the bowl to his lips felt like an impossible task. He remembered holding a spoon some minutes ago. Where was it now?

Sitting next to him, Damianos was also staring at his broth without drinking it. Laurent thought for a second about mocking him for it but that too seemed like a chore, and so he kept quiet and prayed that Damianos would do the same.

Of course, Damianos did not keep quiet for long.

“Your knee is bumping against mine,” he said quietly.

Laurent looked down at his body. His knee was not touching the brute. “It is not.”

“It was, before.”

“It was not.”

“I am…” Damianos drifted off with a sigh. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Ambushed me in my own tent?” Laurent supplied sharply. “Spoken to me disrespectfully? Forced me to endure your presence?”

“—said that about your uncle.” A pause. The men were laughing; one of the guards had dumped his broth into the fire. “I think I understand what you meant now.”

Laurent looked down at his broth again. How badly injured would Damianos be if Laurent stood up and poured the soup over his head?

“I forget, sometimes,” Damianos said.

“You forget.”

“How to read you.” Damianos’s eyes were on him, watching his profile. Laurent would not give him the satisfaction of turning to stare back at him. “And how it is like, between brothers.”

Laurent thought of using that last bit against him. He knew mocking Kastor would rile Damianos up, it was the easiest way to make Damianos regret talking to him. And yet Laurent refrained from doing it.

Sometimes, Kastor came to him in dreams, a head rolling on the ground, bloody and still talking.

Damianos said, “You called me barbaric.”

“And I won’t apologize for it.”

“Do you really hate…” Damianos paused, voice dying down gradually. “Do you really hate Akielos that much?”

Laurent told himself he was too tired to argue. He stood, poured his broth into the dirt, and put the empty bowl on the log where he’d been sitting. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Auguste standing up as well, and thought for a second that his brother was coming to talk to him.

And then he heard the galloping horse.

“Well?” Auguste said impatiently. Laurent knew that if there had not been an audience his brother would have been wringing his hands. “Has my uncle given you trouble?”

The herald dismounted. “He’s given me a message, Your Majesty.”

Damianos stood, and so did most of the men gathered close to the fire. There was nothing unusual about this, Laurent reminded himself, for Kings were stupidly fond of messages. Heralds rarely came back from a journey without a reply.

Auguste shook his head at something a Lord whispered into his ear. “I’d rather hear it in my tent, so as to not disturb everyone else’s meal.” He motioned for the herald to go ahead, a wave of his hand the obvious order. “We will hold a meeting in the morning about it.”

But the herald did not move. “It is not for you, Your Majesty. It’s for the Prince.”

Laurent felt a hundred eyes on him, spearing him from all angles. Even Auguste’s gaze seemed accusatory. He swayed the tiniest bit to the right, and Damianos was instantly there, solid and firm for Laurent to lean against.

“I gave you,” Auguste said to the herald, advancing, “explicit orders not to tell him of my brother’s presence.”

The herald stood his ground, admiringly considering that rumors of Auguste’s earlier outburst had already spread through the whole camp. “I did not tell him, Your Majesty. He already knew the Prince was here.”

Mid-march, Auguste stopped. “What is the message?”

“Your uncle,” the herald said, well-trained so as to not accidentally say _the King_ , “has invited the Prince to attend the trial. He says he cannot wait to see how he’s grown.

Laurent thought he could hear Auguste grinding his teeth. “Is that all?”

The herald’s eyes flickered to Laurent. “He regrets not being able to write him any letters, and says he has thought of the Prince often, and fondly.”

“Enough,” Auguste said. His voice was louder than the crackling fire. “If there is more, I forbid you from saying it.”

Laurent gave in, turning his head to look at Damianos. He was still holding his bowl, broth cold and untouched. Feeling slightly and inexplicably drunk, Laurent leaned closer and whispered, “Would you still choose this, over war?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! Ugh, I know. This is the slowest slow-burn in the universe, but we're getting there. We are. Just WAIT.  
> \- [Look at this! Look at it! Sophia drew that and I'm still ??? over it. No words, just ????](https://mossygreen-art.tumblr.com/post/623563230030233600/in-the-morning-someone-he-cared-about-would-be)  
> \- I've tried to find an article I read about touch starvation but I can't find it! I enjoyed reading [this one](https://www.healthline.com/health/touch-starved) though, so if you want to know what the whole "touch starved" tag is about you should check it out! That will obviously be discussed in later chapters, but still.  
> \- TRY AND GUESS WHO'S COMING TO TOWN NEXT CHAPTER. I'm dying.  
> \- I will try and post next chapter on Saturday, but my University thinks it's funny to deprive me of sleep, so I can't really promise the usual weekly update. If I end up not posting on Saturday, I'll try and do so on Sunday/Monday. And after that, we're back to normal because school is over. Please bear with me.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Love you x


	19. Seventeen

**Seventeen**

The meeting was being held inside Auguste’s tent, partly because it was the biggest one in the camp, and partly because Lord Jasque had insisted that the King should not be forced to leave his haven. _King Auguste should be protected from the traitor at all times_ , he had said on multiple occasions. Laurent had barely refrained from telling him that the traitor could very well be in Auguste’s tent, given the fact that they had no clue who it was. _If_ there even was a traitor, Laurent corrected himself.

It seemed unlikely that their uncle wouldn’t have figured it all out on his own.

A wooden table had been improvised using boards, put together by a very silent Jord and a few of Lord Peire’s men. Over it, a map of Vere had been spread for everyone to see. The south was full of forests and rivers, but Laurent did not need to glance at the map to know where they were or how far one would need to ride to get to the nearest village. Laurent had studied a map just like that one for weeks in Arles, Damianos sitting next to him in the library as they argued over the safest way to get away from Vere.

This meeting, unlike the ones Auguste had presided over in Arles, was very exclusive. The Three Lordlings were there, sat by Auguste’s left, whispering as they pointed at random spots on the map. Jord was there as well, standing guard by the entrance of the tent and looking even more solemn than usual.

Laurent sat between Auguste and Damianos, silent and still. Something pretty for the Lordlings to look at.

“It would show that the Prince is just as willing as you are to see the issue settled,” Lord Guillaume said, leaning forward on the table to get a better look at Auguste’s face. Even that he did slowly. “Think of it as a courtesy, Your Majesty.”

Lord Jasque was quick to add, “And besides, after such a public invitation, what are the chances of an attack?”

Auguste stopped tapping his fingers on the table. “I said no. Twice, if I recall correctly.”

Laurent tried very hard not to groan. How long had they been sitting here, discussing whether or not he should attend the trial? It was obvious Auguste would not budge, no matter how many arguments this Council came up with.

“May I ask why you are turning down your uncle’s invitation, Your Majesty?” Lord Peire asked. “Is the Prince’s safety what concerns you?”

“Yes,” Auguste said. A lie, Laurent knew. “This camp is the safest place for him.”

“But surely with enough guards—”

Auguste cut Lord Peire off with a single look. “I said no.”

“Auguste,” Damianos said, his voice startling Laurent. He had been so quiet throughout the whole meeting it had been easy for Laurent to pretend he was not there at all. “I think Laurent should go.”

Auguste looked at Damianos over Laurent’s head. He did not answer right away, perhaps hoping Damianos would take back his words, and the tent grew quieter and quieter as the seconds went by. But Damianos did not back down.

“And why do you think that?” Auguste asked, at last, allowing everyone to breathe.

Laurent braced himself for what was to come: a stuttering apology, a stammering explanation. Damianos did not stand a chance against any of these Veretian Lords, all of them well-versed in persuasion. If they had not been able to convince Auguste...

“Your uncle is antagonizing you,” Damianos said. Laurent’s first reaction was of surprise; he had not thought Damianos knew the meaning of that word. “I believe he knows you will not allow Laurent to attend the trial, and wishes to use that against you.”

Auguste tilted his head. “Do you think he will not use Laurent’s presence at the trial against me? My uncle plans for everything, even for defeat.”

“Then so should we,” Damianos said steadily. “If Laurent misses the trial, your reputation will suffer greatly. Your uncle will spin a tale about Laurent being your hostage, not even allowed to leave your camp, and you cannot afford that.”

“You two,” Auguste said, looking at Laurent, “have been talking.”

Laurent only pursed his mouth in response. He was not done playing childish games.

“You said it is his safety that concerns you. Allow Jord and Lazar to go with him, and leave someone else in charge of your men here.”

Auguste hummed. It was not a pleasant sound. “You make it sound so easy. Tell me, how do I know Jord and Lazar will keep him safe?”

“Auguste,” Laurent said. One word, and yet his annoyance was so sharp it made one of the Lords pull back from the table.

Lord Guillaume gave a nervous laugh. “Your Majesty, if you cannot trust your own men—”

“How can I,” Auguste said, “when there is a traitor amongst them?”

“Jord and Lazar aren’t traitors.”

“Ah, is that your expert opinion, Laurent? I did not know you possessed the ability to spot the rotten apple in the barrel. You should have spoken up sooner, saved us all the trouble.”

Very calmly, Laurent replied, “Your Council agrees it is a terrible idea to keep me here, yet you’ll do as you please, as usual. Why bother asking us for advice if you won’t listen to what we have to say?”

Before Auguste could answer, Damianos stepped back into the conversation. “I will go with him if you do not trust anyone else. Unless you do not trust me either.”

Laurent held his breath in anticipation. He was so close, so close, to finally getting what he wanted, and yet he did not dare hope. Not about this.

“He could stay outside of the negotiations room, Your Majesty.”

Auguste turned in his seat, eyes on Laurent. They looked at each other for a while, probably longer than they should have in front of an audience.

“You will not speak to him,” Auguste said, “not even to greet him. If he or any of his men try to approach you, you are to come back here with Damianos. If you so much as try to sneak your way into that room, I swear on my life I will punish you. Do you understand?”

Laurent held his gaze. “Yes, brother.”

Something flickered across Auguste’s features, sharp and ugly. “No notes. Swear it to me.”

“I already said—”

“Swear it,” Auguste said, “or you’re not going.”

Laurent felt all the eyes on him like tiny blades digging into his skin. Even though the tent was cool, the back of Laurent’s neck felt hot and damp, his braid too tight. _Shame,_ he thought and was surprised by how long it’d been since he’d experienced this.

“I swear I won’t disobey you. I will not speak to him or try to be present while you discuss the terms of the trial. I will not speak to any of his men either.” Then, when Auguste refused to look away, he added, “And I will not slip him any notes.”

“Or accept any of his.”

“Yes.”

Auguste tapped his fingers on the table again. He was yet to look away from Laurent’s face. “Do not make me regret trusting you with this.”

“He won’t,” Damianos said.

And, of course, at Damianos’s reassurance, Auguste was finally convinced. He turned away from both of them, rearranging his limbs so as to face the Lords, and started discussing with them who else would be allowed to leave camp.

Laurent stared at Jord’s back for a while, trying to imagine what was going on inside his head. It was hard to tell how affected by Auguste’s words he truly was, for he was facing away from the table and his hands were clasped tightly. Laurent had never seen Jord’s hands shake, but he knew that being accused of treason, no matter how indirectly, would have been more than enough to make any man slightly nervous.

Under the table, something brushed against the back Laurent’s hand. His first instinct was to pull away, but the touch was brief, almost imagined, and before Laurent could properly react it was gone.

He turned to Damianos, the only person by his side, and said, “Are you feeling neglected?”

Damianos smiled, shifting in his seat to lean closer to Laurent. “Can you blame me? This is tedious.”

“You’re tedious,” Laurent said quietly. He did not want to catch anyone’s attention. “Why did you do that?”

“Why did I—”

“Say that to Auguste.”

Damianos looked confused for a moment. “I thought you wanted to go.”

“Yes,” Laurent said. He was running out of patience, still not fully recovered from that little scene Auguste had forced on him minutes ago. “But last time we spoke about it, you did not seem terribly fond of the idea.”

“I—”

Lord Peire’s gasp cut Damianos off. “Your Majesty,” he said, and his voice was so annoyingly high Laurent winced. “Not even _one_ of them?”

“I have other things to worry about,” Auguste said, “than the quality of your pets.”

“Perhaps it’d be wise for you to unwind a bit before we leave,” Lord Peire continued. He had obviously not heard the warning in Auguste’s voice, or he had simply chosen to ignore it. It made no difference, for both options showed his stupidity. “Maybe you should even bring one of the pets along to the negotiations.”

One by one the Lords gave their opinions, all of them ignoring Auguste’s darkening expression.

“Yes,” Lord Guillaume said. “The oldest one, perhaps.”

Lord Jasque nodded. “He should be dark-haired,” he added, glancing at Laurent for a second before looking away. “Dark-skinned, too.”

Auguste pressed his hands against the table and rose, slowly and without speaking, from his seat. “This meeting is over,” he announced, too loudly. “I’m ready to ride.”

It was clear the Lords wanted to argue, but the look on Auguste’s face silenced them. They all stood up and left in a neat line when Jord moved away from the entrance of the tent to let them through. The second they were outside, they began talking in hushed voices, but when Jord closed the tent flaps again their voices disappeared.

Laurent ran his fingers over the wooden board-slash-table. The pad of his index finger found a splinter and he pressed down on it. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Auguste was still standing next to him, pondering whatever wild ideas he pondered these days. Laurent stuck his finger in his mouth when he saw the blood starting to well up.

He tasted like dirty copper.

“I hope you know I did not mean to defy you,” Damianos said, standing up so he and Auguste were on eye-level. Laurent remained sitting, stubbornly, between them. “I only meant to speak the truth.”

Auguste made a dismissive gesture with his hand. He did that a lot lately, Laurent noticed. Perhaps he thought himself above words now. But then Auguste said, “I’d like a word alone with my brother.”

Laurent stood. “Now you are being stupid on purpose.”

“Laurent,” Damianos said. “You shouldn’t—”

“Lord Peire suggests you unwind before leaving for the trial,” Laurent said, “and your first idea is to be left alone with me in your tent? I would not have expected such idiocy from you.”

Auguste’s hands turned to fists on the table. He relaxed them after a moment as if the sudden clenching of his fingers had simply been a spasm. “Leave, then. I need to change.”

Laurent did not need to be told twice. He was walking towards Jord when he heard Damianos’s voice, low and gentle, saying his brother’s name. It sounded like a scolding of sorts.

Surprisingly, Jord followed him outside.

“I see you’re feeling better,” Laurent said. One of Lord Guillaume’s men rushed past them, making a beeline for the improvised stables that had been put together the night before. Around Laurent, the camp was buzzing and full of life. “Remind me what was wrong with you again?”

“I was—sick.”

Laurent looked at him, the ashen tone of his skin, the chapped lips. “Heartbreak does not suit you, Jord.”

Jord said, “Heartbreak?”

Whatever might have passed between them after that was forestalled by Damianos, who came out of the tent and did not hesitate to approach Laurent. If he and Auguste had talked, they had kept it short and to the point, and Laurent was very curious to learn exactly what words had been exchanged between them.

“Should we ride together?” Damianos asked. “It’ll be easier to escape if we only have to worry about one horse.”

“Escape?” Laurent asked and then remembered he’d sworn to come back here if his uncle made any advances. “No. I’d rather walk barefoot than ride with you.”

Jord took a step back, returning to his post by the entrance of Auguste’s tent. He did so silently, yet Laurent noticed. Under the sunlight, Jord’s face looked even paler than usual, adding to his general state of disarray.

Damianos’s hand disappeared behind Laurent’s back, a flash of movement, and a second later Laurent felt a gentle tug on his braid. By the time Laurent reacted, slapping Damianos’s arm, the brute had already let go of his hair.

“Come on then,” Damianos said, not giving Laurent a chance to speak. He started towards the stables. “I guess I’ll ride alone.”

Laurent followed, his curiosity over Jord’s mood evaporating with every step he took towards Damianos. “You need to stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

 _Touching me_ , Laurent thought. He almost said it, almost, and then he realized that if he did Damianos would most likely comply and then—what, exactly, would follow? The touching would cease, which was what Laurent wanted.

He did not say it. Instead, “What did you tell my brother just now?”

“That you’re only being a brat because you’re nervous,” Damianos said. He slowed down when he noticed Laurent was still several steps behind. “Because you care about him. Was I wrong?”

Laurent ignored the question. “And what did he say to that?”

A man—Lord Jasque’s, most likely—guided them to where their horses were. The makeshift stables were a sad sight, but Laurent was glad to see the men had not put too much effort into them. It meant they did not think the trial would last long, which was a good sign. What mattered most in Vere, especially in the south, were appearances.

Auguste needed to look like victory was already his.

Damianos extended a hand, offering Laurent help to get on his mare. When Laurent did not take it, he withdrew it, said, “He cares about you too.”

Using a beat-down bucket to pull himself up, Laurent mounted. “Were those his exact words?”

“No, but—”

“I did not think they were,” Laurent said. He watched from his saddle as Damianos used the same bucket to get on his horse. “Let me guess: he did not say anything at all.”

Damianos did not deny it.

*

Auguste rode alone, leading them all through the forest. The three Lords rode side by side, and behind them, two lines of guards from the four provinces separated Damianos and Laurent from the rest of the party.

Jord and Lazar had been left behind, along with most of Auguste’s men, but Laurent could not fault his brother for that decision. There were too many men in the camp, along with too many pets and too much wine. A strong, disciplined hand was needed to keep them in line.

Laurent’s reins kept slipping from his hands, which were damp and cold at the same time, and he was aware that Damianos was watching his every move. Holding onto the leather as tightly as he could, Laurent tried to pretend that nothing was troubling him.

It was midday, but the thick branches above their heads kept the vicious sun away. Distantly, there was the sound of water running—the stream that bordered the camp—and the singing of the birds. The forest was green and brown and very similar to the ones in Arles, yet Laurent’s mind kept wandering away, unable to enjoy the sight.

When the castle came into view, Laurent’s pulse sped up. His heart slammed itself against Laurent’s ribs as if trying to break free, pumping blood so furiously Laurent’s head felt as though it was about to explode. His ears were buzzing, which happened sometimes when he was nervous, but never like this. It was like his head had been turned into a honeycomb, bees swarming around his skull.

There was no drawbridge, no chemise. Laurent had been to a dozen castles, all of them more impressive than this one, but the moment he saw the towers something inside him whined, like an old door being pried open. Laurent held onto the reins, closed his eyes for a long moment, and did what the old man had taught him to do.

He had dressed very carefully that morning before attending Auguste’s meeting. A cream-colored shirt, the black pants he hadn’t had a chance to wear in Arles, and the deep-purple vest with the golden laces. Neck, forearms, back: he had tightened the glimmering straps to the point of pain, and then some more.

And his boots, of course. He had slipped them on knowing by the end of the day the soles of his feet would be bloody, old blisters re-opening and new ones blooming, all of them away from view.

Laurent started with his toes, counted them slowly in his head. Then his fingers, one by one. Two legs, two arms. He counted his mare’s legs as well, added them to the list, ran his tongue over his teeth, and counted those, too.

They were entering the castle when he opened his eyes again.

Banners clung to the inner walls, the color of stale blood. The Veretian star was the same, right in the middle, and yet it had never seemed so foreign to Laurent. It was like looking at a siege for the first time, trying to work out its hidden meaning.

It made sense, in a way Laurent had not been expecting. Kings needed banners, and colors, and symbols. Why would his uncle be any different? In an attempt to differentiate himself from his nephew, their uncle had decided that the color of the south was red. Everywhere Laurent looked, blood stared back at him. Cloaks, roses, banners—all of them were red.

A herald was waiting for them at the center of the courtyard. It was the same man that had delivered the invitation to Auguste all those weeks past.

“The King awaits,” he said. His voice, trained to carry, seemed to fill the entire place. “He has asked me to escort you to the Council room, where you may present your judges to him.”

Auguste swung off his horse with ease, the crown on his head a beacon of light under the sun. He motioned for his Lords to dismount as well and grudgingly handed the reins of his horse to one of the stable boys dressed in red.

Laurent could not take his eyes off him, telling himself that any moment now Auguste would turn to look at him and smile. Or perhaps he’d nod, trying to keep the appearances. Laurent did not care; he only wanted to see Auguste’s face before he disappeared into that sea of black bricks and red cloth.

But his brother did not turn. Auguste followed the herald, disappearing into what appeared to be the main hall, the three Lords trailing after him like children lining up for dinner.

Auguste’s guards didn’t scatter; they had been told very explicitly what to do. The men encircled Damianos and Laurent, preventing the courtiers from even glancing at them. A barrier made of flesh and bone.

Out of all the daydreams Laurent had entertained regarding this moment, this one was, by far, the most disappointing.

For the first time since they had left the camp, Laurent turned to look at Damianos. He’d been ignoring him all this time, shaking his head whenever Damianos asked him a question as they rode through the forest. After a while, Damianos had given up trying to make Laurent talk.

“Are we supposed to wait here?”

“I told you it’d be boring,” Damianos said. There was no contempt in his voice, no mockery. “We could go back to the camp, I suppose.”

“No, I—” Laurent stopped. He did not want to sound too eager. “I think we should stay, for a while at least. It won’t be long until Auguste is back.”

“There are gardens here, I saw them when we rode in. Perhaps we could wait there.”

“Will they allow it?” Laurent asked, eyes trailing over the guards around them. He wished, unexpectedly, that Jord and Lazar had been allowed to come.

“At least two of them should escort us. Unless two swords and a dagger are not enough for you.”

Laurent considered his words. “A dagger?” He looked down at the belt of Damianos’s chiton, thin leather laces holding it in place. Something flashed under the sun, catching his eye instantly. “You kept it.”

“Yes. You gifted it to me, after all.”

Laurent dismounted. When Damianos’s feet hit the ground, he had to hold himself back from reaching out to touch the hilt of the half-hidden dagger. He watched as Damianos instructed two guards to walk with them to gardens, his Veretian accent-less and smooth as silk. Laurent had never envied him more.

The gardens here were nothing like the ones at his brother’s palace in Arles. There were no oak trees, no colorful flowerbeds. A green sea of perfectly trimmed bushes spread before Laurent’s eyes, sprinkled with red blooming roses that demanded to be admired.

There was one similarity between the two gardens: a water fountain right at the center.

Damianos caught him looking at it. “We can go somewhere else.”

Instead of replying, Laurent started walking towards the fountain, forcing Damianos to follow. It was always colder by the water, and so Laurent had to suppress a shudder as he sat down on the marble edge. The statue here was not of a weeping woman, like in Arles, but of a barely clothed youth. He was smiling, his teeth on full display, something Laurent found particularly disturbing.

The two guards maintained their distance, close enough to cut down an attacker but not so close they might listen in on Damianos and Laurent’s conversation.

“You should have brought a book with you,” Damianos said in Akielon, sitting down next to Laurent. His chiton rode up, his knees and half of his thighs on full display. “Or dices.”

Laurent ran his fingers over the water. It was uncomfortably warm. “You,” he said, in Akielon, and stopped. He tried again. “You’re right. It’s safer to hold our conversations here in your language rather than mine.”

Damianos watched him play with the water for a long time. It should have felt unnerving, uncomfortable even, to have Damianos’s eyes on him for so long, but Laurent did not mind. It was easy to sit in silence with him. Laurent did not want to think about why.

“I thought Barbin was supposed to be neutral,” Damianos said. When Laurent looked away from the water, he noticed that Damianos’s gaze had shifted, and he was now staring at the red banner across the garden. “This is one of your uncle’s provinces.”

“Not all of it is my uncle’s,” Laurent said. “Auguste holds half of it, to the north.”

“Are the two of them even?”

Laurent hesitated. How many times had he lain awake at night, going over the list of his brother’s allies? “Belloy, Varenne, Toutaine, and Marches are my brother’s.”

“And half of Barbin,” Damianos said gently. Laurent imagined he was trying to be reassuring. “Four and a half against five and a half. It’s—” He stopped. “It’s not that bad.”

“You’re wrong. My uncle only holds four, as well. Four and a half, I mean.”

Damianos frowned. “But I was certain—”

“The Lord of Ladehors has decided against joining the dispute. He’s always been rather pragmatic.”

“He’s waiting to see who the winner is,” Damianos said. His fingers touched Laurent’s under the water for a second. Then he withdrew. “What a fool he is if he thinks Auguste will forgive him this.”

“I don’t think he expects Auguste to win.”

There came a breeze, cool and fresh and soft. Laurent leaned into it without thinking. The smell of lavender hit him like a slap to the face. He froze.

Damianos was looking at him again. “What are you—”

“There’s someone else here,” Laurent said. His Akielon was turning the words to mud in his mouth, thickening them. “No. Don’t turn around. Keep talking.”

Damianos’s face hardened. He moved closer to Laurent. “Can you see them?”

“No,” Laurent said. He wasn’t worried, not exactly, because Auguste’s guards were still close. It was the smell that was making him nauseous. “Keep talking.”

“What am I supposed to talk about?” Damianos asked. His voice came out strange like it was difficult for him to speak. It probably was.

“Just… Babble. You’re good at that, I believe.”

Damianos hesitated for a moment. Then, he said, “I’ve been practicing my braids. Pallas refuses to tell me what he thinks of them, which is probably not a good sign.”

Laurent’s eyes roamed discreetly over the rosebushes and past the guards. “It took me years to learn.”

“I don’t have years,” Damianos said. “Weeks, at most.”

“Are you planning on never practicing again once this is over?”

Damianos leaned closer. His shoulders were tense and so was the hand resting on his lap. The other one was dangerously close to Laurent’s. “No, but I want—”

A flickering movement caught Laurent’s eye. It was only a second, perhaps even less, but Laurent had been watching in the right direction when it happened. “There,” he said, more to himself than to Damianos. “Behind the pillar.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t—” Laurent cut himself off.

This time the breeze was stronger, showing Laurent a glimpse of the clothing the person hiding behind the column was wearing. It was only a flash of white, the fabric soft-looking and expensive even from a distance. When the smell of lavender struck him again, Laurent forced himself not to react to it. 

A hand, pale and small, snatched the fabric away from view.

“It’s a child,” Laurent said. He felt Damianos relax beside him and envied him tremendously. Laurent’s body felt like it was made of stone, heavy and rigid. Like a statue with a beating heart.

Damianos opened his mouth to speak, but Laurent raised a hand to stop him. A second passed and then another. Movement followed. The child hiding behind the pillar must have noticed their silence and, curious, tried to sneak a look at them. Laurent strained his ears, held his breath for a moment, and was rewarded with the soft chime of small bells. A glimpse of brown curls.

Irrationally, Laurent thought of Aimeric.

“Let us meet our little spy,” Laurent said as he stood up. Something was pulling him towards the column, like a puppet being dragged around by a string. “Be quiet.”

Damianos said, “Laurent—”

Laurent ignored him. He stepped carefully to avoid giving himself away and decided to circle the gardens instead of walking towards the child in a straight line. Damianos was right behind him, so quiet Laurent had to turn around twice to make sure he had not gotten lost. It felt… nice, in a way Laurent had not been expecting. He knew Damianos did not think this was a good idea, and yet he was following Laurent anyways.

Once in the corridor, their steps were not so easily muffled. Laurent was wearing heeled boots and Damianos sandals, and the floor under their feet was made of dark stone. The child heard them and startled, but there was no time for him to run. In three long strides, Laurent was standing before him, cornering against the pillar.

It was a boy. A tight necklace of red velvet adorned his throat and two small bells hung from it, silver and new. What Laurent had thought was a dress was actually a loose camisole, the sort of thing a girl would wear to bed. His face was pale and his expression carefully bored, and only when Laurent looked at his eyes did he notice that they were slightly fringed.

And very, very blue.

 _You have been watching us_ , Laurent thought of saying. Instead, what came out was: “I like your perfume.”

The child held his gaze. A little sneer was curling his mouth, which was plump and red. Laurent wondered if that was paint, too. “It’s not _perfume_.”

Laurent knew it wasn’t. “What’s your name?” he asked and received no answer. “I’m Laurent.”

“I know who you are,” the child said disdainfully. His wide blue eyes flickered to Damianos and he tensed. Sometimes Laurent forgot how big Damianos really was. “You’re the false King’s brother.”

 _He’s sharp_ , Laurent thought. It had been years since anyone had dared speak to him like that. His voice was high-pitched and ringing, stubbornly youthful. Laurent’s had sounded like that too, once.

“I am,” Laurent said. Damianos’s eyes on the back of his head felt like knives, accusing. “Are you a Lord’s son?”

It was not unlikely. The boy’s clothes were made of fine silk and his necklace did not look cheap. He was barefoot, but his feet were clean and pink; he was definitely not a stable boy. His features were too fine, too pretty. 

And then he smiled as if Laurent was as daft as he was young. How could someone so small look so condescending? “I don’t have to answer any of your questions.”

“You don’t,” Laurent agreed. “But you were spying on us.”

“So?” the boy asked, lifting his chin. He sounded just like Dion.

“So I think you owe us your name,” Damianos said. His chest was pressed against Laurent’s back, and he was looking down at the child over Laurent’s right shoulder.

The boy’s smile faltered, a stutter in his otherwise nonchalant expression. Belatedly, Laurent realized he was afraid. But he was good at hiding it.

“My name is Nicaise,” he said. “And you’re not important enough for me to waste my time spying on you.”

“I’m the Prince,” Laurent said. “Doesn’t that make me important?”

“There are no Princes in the south.”

“I see.”

Nicaise was quiet for a moment. Then, looking at Laurent, he said, “You’re not as pretty as they said you were.”

Damianos stiffened behind him.

“They?” Laurent asked calmly.

Heavy and fast footsteps interrupted their conversation. Laurent looked away from Nicaise and found that a large man with a sword on his belt was approaching them. He was not dressed in red, which meant he was not in the King’s Guard. _In Uncle’s Guard_ , Laurent corrected himself. His uncle was not the King.

Yet.

The closer the man got, the more defined his features became. His nose was flat and crooked as if it had been broken in more than one place and left to heal unattended. A coarse-looking beard grew all over his cheeks and chin like poison-ivy.

Damianos stepped in front of Laurent just as the man came to a stop.

“You know you’re not allowed here,” the man said to Nicaise, grabbing him by the wrist and yanking. He was so brusque the boy stumbled, unbalanced, and almost fell to his knees.

“Let go of him,” Damianos said. “Now.”

Nicaise managed to free himself, rubbing at the red spot on his wrist where the man’s fingers had left their mark. “He won’t like this.”

The man shoved Nicaise, hard, towards the gardens. “If I catch you out of your rooms again,” he said and did not bother completing his threat.

Laurent watched the boy fix his hair, blowing a loose curl away from his face and tucking another one behind his ear. Under the sun, the glimmer of the rubies was unmistakable. His earrings matched the velvet strap around his neck, red like the banners, like the guard’s cloaks.

Nicaise turned around, bells chiming as he went. Laurent stared at him, at the swaying of his hips, pronounced enough to be noticeable even under the thin fabric of his camisole. The smell of lavender lingered in the air for a fleeting moment, and then it was gone as well.

Damianos was touching his elbow. “—ent?”

Laurent blinked. He pulled himself back into his body and said, “Yes?”

The man was nowhere to be seen, which meant Damianos had sent him on his way without Laurent noticing. Where had the last minutes gone? It had been years since time had gotten away from Laurent like this, in the blink of an eye.

“We’re leaving,” Damianos said and his voice was firm, as though he expected Laurent to argue.

And Laurent _could_ have argued. He wanted to stay until he knew Auguste was safe, until he was certain that this had not been an elaborate trap to get him alone and hurt him. He wanted to look for that child again— _Nicaise_ , his mind supplied—and ask him about the scented oils and the earring. He wanted a million things and, for a moment, he saw himself pursuing them.

“Yes,” Laurent said. “We should.”

The walk back to the bailey felt like a haze. Laurent was faintly aware of the two guards following them, of the neighing of horses as they approached the rest of Auguste’s men, of Damianos’s fingers still curled around his elbow.

His mare was right where he’d left her, and the closer he got to her the more excited she became. Laurent’s arm moved on its own, up, and his fingers found that spot behind her ears that always turned her pliant.

“Can you ride on your own?” Damianos asked him.

“No,” Laurent said. The words surprised him; he had not intended to speak the truth.

“Then you’ll ride with me.”

“I don’t—I can’t leave her here.”

“The guards can watch her,” Damianos said. “My horse is—”

“No,” Laurent said. He continued to stroke her, feeling the warmth that came off of her in waves and traveled up his numb arm. If no one else had been watching, he would have pressed his face against her shoulder. “It’s a short ride. She can make it.”

The saddle was too small to fit both of them and thus had to be removed. Laurent let Damianos handle that part and focused on his breathing, on the tiny braids all over his mare’s crest.

There was no bucket to step on this time, but his mare was small enough that Damianos was able to mount her easily on his own. Once settled, Damianos offered Laurent a hand and hoisted him up.

Laurent looked down at the reins in his hands for a long time. He knew what he was supposed to do, he had been riding since he was seven years old, but his hands stayed still and numb. Eventually, Damianos pried the reins away from his fingers, so gently Laurent was surprised when he looked down and found that he was not holding them anymore.

“Lean back,” Damianos said, his warm breath ghosting over Laurent’s cheek. Under them, Laurent’s mare began to trot hesitantly, turning her head to look at them from time to time. “Your stiffness is scaring her.”

Laurent leaned back without arguing. Resting his head on Damianos’s shoulder, he began to count. Without a saddle, Laurent had to tighten his thighs to avoid slipping and falling off, which became uncomfortable very quickly. He was still sore from yesterday’s ride, muscles screaming louder with every minute that passed, but if he let go—

“I won’t let you fall.”

“If I fall…” Laurent did not finish. _I’ll have you flogged_ , he’d been about to say. But Damianos was not Lazar and this place was not Arles.

“You won’t,” Damianos said. He sounded amused.

The forest was a green and brown blur around them, trees coming in and out of focus the closer they got to the camp. Damianos had shifted, his chest plastered to Laurent’s back, not an inch between their bodies. His naked thighs brushed against Laurent’s constantly, so much that Laurent began to think the fabric of his pants would give Damianos a rash if they did not arrive soon.

Laurent caught a glimpse of the camp—of Auguste’s blue tent, more specifically—but then Damianos pulled hard at the reins, commanding the mare to turn left and away from the path.

“We’re going in the wrong direction.”

“We are,” Damianos said. “It’s intentional.”

Laurent closed his eyes. “Are you kidnapping me?”

Damianos laughed and Laurent felt the echoes of it in his own body where his back was pressed to Damianos’s vibrating chest. Time tried to melt away again, but this time Laurent did not let it. He focused on Damianos—his thighs, his chest, his almost hoarse breathing. It worked even better than counting.

When Laurent opened his eyes again they had stopped and Damianos was dismounting, taking his warmth with him. Once his feet were on the ground, Damianos offered Laurent a hand, and Laurent took it without thinking.

Laurent’s head cleared even more when his own feet touched the ground, his boots breaking a few twigs in half with a loud crunch. Looking around for the first time, he realized the sound he kept hearing was not inside his head: it was the stream.

“What if I wanted to rest?” Laurent asked, moving closer to the water.

“You can rest here,” Damianos said. He bent down and undid the straps of his sandals gracefully. “You should take off your boots.”

“Why?”

“Leather does not do well with water. And they’re new, aren’t they? Your feet must hurt.”

Laurent curled his toes, felt the blisters there. “I broke them in weeks ago.”

Damianos straightened. He was barefoot, standing in the middle of a dirt patch where moss did not grow. “But they’re tight and not meant for riding.”

Calmly: “Tight?”

But Damianos did not answer. Instead, he sat down on the riverbank, ignoring how the dirt would cling to his white chiton, and lowered his feet into the water.

“It’s not cold.” Damianos wiggled his toes. He added, “Are your feet cold?”

Laurent began to unlace his boots very slowly. “Why would they be?”

“Your fingers are always cold. Auguste’s too.”

“Do you hold my brother’s hand often?”

Damianos laughed. The stream carried the sound away. “You know I don’t.”

Laurent walked over to the edge and sat down next to Damianos, telling himself he was only doing it in case the opportunity to kick him into the stream arose. The water was not cold but it was not warm either, and Laurent hissed when it touched his toes, which made Damianos laugh again.

“Here,” Damianos said, leaning forward and touching Laurent’s ankle. Before Laurent could ask him what he was doing, Damianos began to roll up one of the cuffs of Laurent’s pants. “They’ll get wet.”

“They’re already wet.”

Damianos did the other cuff as well. His fingers looked weird under the water, thick and lean at the same time. “I think it’s time for you to admit that chitons have their advantages.”

“Such as?”

“They don’t get wet when you soak your feet.”

“They’re too revealing.”

Damianos looked down at his body. “All the important bits are covered.”

“Only pets show that much skin,” Laurent said. He felt his throat tighten at the words and had to breathe very carefully for the next couple of minutes. Damianos, kicking at the water, did not seem to notice. “Besides, I don’t think I’d look good in white.”

That got Damianos’s attention. He turned his head to look at Laurent’s face. “Why not?”

“I,” Laurent said and stopped. Then, “I’m too pale.”

Damianos paused to think about it. “And? Your shirt is white.”

“It’s cream-colored,” Laurent said. “There’s a difference.”

“Is there?”

“Yes. White makes me look ghastly.”

Damianos frowned. “Ghostly?”

“ _Ghastly_.”

“Oh,” Damianos said. He was smiling again. “Ghostly.”

“I said—” Laurent broke off, realizing Damianos was only teasing. “You’re insufferable.”

A bright orange fish tickled Laurent’s right foot. It was small, hardly the size of a clenched fist, and it quickly swam away to Damianos when Laurent shifted. When Damianos noticed it, he stopped swinging his legs and went very still.

Thinking the worst, Laurent said, “Don’t try to catch it.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.” Damianos set his jaw when the fish swam too close to his toes, probably tickling him. They both watched it swim in tight circles around Damianos’s calf, only to disappear behind a rock minutes later. “I remember—”

“I know,” Laurent said. “The feast.”

“What was it that you said? ‘ _It’s too salty and it has tiny_ —’ oh, don’t scowl.”

“I’m not scowling.”

“You are.” Damianos raised his other hand and touched the spot where Laurent’s eyebrows met. “Right here,” he said. His fingers trailed lower, thumb pressing gently against the sagging corner of Laurent’s mouth. “And here.”

That only made Laurent’s scowl deepen. He waited until Damianos’s hand was away from his mouth to say, “You said I could rest, yet you insist on pestering me.”

Damianos ignored him, touching his braid lightly. “My braids will never look like this.”

“You simply need to practice.” Laurent shifted, pulling his feet out of the water and sitting cross-legged with his back turned to Damianos. With practiced ease, he pulled at the thin leather strap holding the end of his plait together and let it come undone. He felt Damianos’s fingers dangerously close to his neck and said, “Wash your hands first.”

There was the sound of splashing water and then Damianos said, “And now?”

“I’ll guide you through it.”

Damianos shifted closer, his wet hands dripping all over Laurent’s shoulders. Quietly, he divided Laurent’s hair into three sections using his fingers and then waited for instructions.

Laurent said, “Cross the right section over the middle one.” He felt Damianos move, his fingers a ghost over Laurent’s neck. “Now cross the _left_ section over the middle one.”

Damianos hesitated, as Laurent knew he would. “Which one is the middle section?”

“The one in the middle,” Laurent said.

“I mean, is it the _new_ middle one? Or is it the one that was in the middle originally?”

Laurent laughed. He could not help it, the sound came bursting out of him so unexpectedly he had no time to think of ways to smother it.

Damianos pressed his forehead against the crown of Laurent’s head. His breath hit the nape of Laurent’s neck, a warm ghost. “Help,” he said, a little desperately.

“It’s the new middle one.”

Damianos complied. “Is it tight enough?”

“Yes,” Laurent said. It wasn’t. “Now you do it all over again. From right to left.”

In silence, Damianos got to work. His fingers moved slowly, a beginner’s hesitancy marking their pace. The King of Akielos was braiding his hair, Laurent realized. Those hands had held a sword and slaughtered men, they had pleasured countless lovers. And yet now they were trembling.

Interesting.

Damianos huffed. “I think I’ve made a mistake.”

Laurent ran his fingers over the braid, feeling for bumps. There were plenty, in all shapes and sizes, but he soon found what Damianos was talking about. He pointed at the knot, said, “Here.”

“Is it better now?”

 _No._ “Yes.” He passed the leather strap to Damianos. “That wasn’t hard, was it?”

Only a few seconds passed before Damianos let go of the finished braid. Even though there was no reason why they should still be sitting like this, almost pressed into each other, neither of them moved. Laurent was not breathing.

And then Damianos’s hand was on his shoulder, squeezing it so gently Laurent felt—

“Stiff?” Damianos asked. He was trying to sound casual, but Laurent could hear the slight panic in his voice. Laurent felt that same panic rising inside him, threatening to pull them both under.

After a moment’s hesitation, Laurent said, “A little.”

Damianos brought his other hand up to Laurent’s other shoulder. To complete this task he awaited no instructions, simply applying pressure with his thumbs. “Did you even stretch last night?”

“No. I—” Laurent could not think very clearly. “Why would I?”

“You spent the day riding.”

“You did, too.”

Slowly, Damianos was kneading his shoulders. His hands never strayed, never moved lower. His thumb brushed against Laurent’s neck. “I stretched. Has your back hurt all day?”

Laurent did not know how to deny it. “It’s barely midday.” And then, “Where did you learn to do this?”

“I told you,” Damianos said slowly, “that I am good with my hands.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“Neither have you.”

Damianos’s thumb touched a spot on Laurent’s back, right between his shoulder blades, and Laurent felt the words come tumbling out his mouth, unfiltered and uncoordinated. “I… There.”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

After that Laurent could not hold himself upright as easily anymore. He tried, at first, to fight against this. A hundred thoughts came to him, all of them unbidden, and yet Laurent found himself refuting each one. _His hands are clean_ and _No one is watching_ and _It feels good._ He would let himself have this, if only for a moment.

One of Damianos’s hands left his shoulder, knuckles pressing against Laurent’s spine as if trying to correct his posture. “Like this?”

“Yes.”

Laurent’s head was growing heavier by the second. He wanted to sag forward into the mossy green earth and press his cheek against it, maybe even taste the stream, but he forced himself to stay put. Pressing his palms against the slimy rock, Laurent bit back a sigh.

“Is it so hard to relax?” Damianos asked, only half-panicked now. “Auguste is most likely on his way back to camp. He’ll be fine. Whatever happens after the trial—”

Laurent pushed himself away, unfolding his legs and standing up so brusquely his vision swam. “That’s enough.”

He found his boots and slipped them on, not bothering to get the laces right. When he looked up he noticed that Damianos was on his feet as well, watching him silently. Laurent took his time unrolling the wet cuffs of his pants, trying to hide his ankles from view again.

As he straightened, Laurent realized the movement came without any pain attached to it. “Thank you,” he said. The words tasted strangely new, as though he had never used them before. “I’m—going.”

Damianos took a step towards him, still barefoot. “Laurent—”

“You should stay here,” Laurent said. His mare neighed, reminding him of her presence. She had been watching the whole scene intently. “We’re close enough for me to walk the rest of the way, and when you’re… done, you can ride her back to the camp.”

“No,” Damianos said. “Let us ride together. It’s—Laurent.”

But Laurent had already started walking towards the path and away from him, away from the stream. The sound of rushing water grew dimmer with every step he took, and so did Damianos’s voice, calling his name.

*

Lunch was being served when Laurent finally made it to the campsite, which was exactly what he had been hoping for. He hid behind a tree for a while, in the shade, counting his breaths and willing his hands to steady.

Inside his head, he saw the whole camp as if on a map—Auguste’s blue tent at the center, then Damianos’s, then his own. The soldiers shared thirteen of the smaller tents, and Laurent knew which one Jord and Aimeric slept in because he’d been watching them that morning.

Since the soldiers had not brought anything of value with them, they saw no reason to leave guards at the entrance of their tents. Laurent waited until the last of them had left to slip inside. It would only take a few minutes. All he had to do was find Aimeric’s bed. Or rather, Jord and Aimeric’s bed.

The tent smelled foul, which did not surprise him in the slightest. He had been to the guard’s rooms once in Arles and knew that lowborn men, especially those who liked to hold swords, were no overly concerned about things like soap and scented oils. It was slightly dark inside with all the flaps closed, yet Laurent was able to see the beds—if they could even be called that—in neat lines, arranged so as to accommodate as many people as possible

Jord was the Captain, which had to mean something. His bed had to be the biggest one or the one with the best blankets. Laurent found it easily enough, stopping only once when he thought he’d heard someone approaching the tent. It was by no means luxurious, but it was clear that Jord was not sleeping alone in it. Some of Aimeric’s clothes were folded neatly at the foot of the bed, next to one of Jord’s undershirt.

Laurent’s hands searched the thin mattress first, then the hard pillows. He could feel his heart in his throat, trying to climb out of his body and make its escape. When he had inspected the whole bed, Laurent’s pulse slowed. He got on his knees and opened Aimeric’s bag, rummaged half-heartedly through it, and then closed it.

Sitting on his haunches, Laurent laughed.

 _What did you think you’d find?_ his inner voice mocked. _One of Auguste’s love letters?_ The thought only made Laurent laugh harder, and he had to bite down on his fist to keep the cackling contained. He felt stupidly giddy with happiness.

The thought had come to him in the woods. Laurent had pushed it away instantly, but it had kept on coming like a beast demanding to be fed. Laurent had told himself it was preposterous, that there was no evidence to support such claims, and now he knew he’d been right.

Perhaps lavender oil was popular in the south. Perhaps here it was a common practice to pierce a child’s lobes and hang expensive earrings off them. Those things meant nothing at all, they mere coincidences. Of course Nicaise was not a pet. And of course he wasn’t Uncle’s.

And _of course_ Aimeric had not—

Something shiny caught Laurent’s eye. Brimming with overconfidence, he reached out for it without thinking, and pulled it out of one of the pockets of Aimeric’s bag. It was probably another of Loyse’s knick-knacks, another barrette, or a cheap pearl necklace.

The earring slipped through his fingers, landing on the dirt without making a sound. Despite the poor illumination, the sapphires glittered under Laurent’s gaze, bluer than the ocean.

He stared at it for a long, long time.

His fingers picked it up again and returned it to its hiding spot in Aimeric’s bag, steadily and without error. Laurent stood up and rolled his shoulders, feeling the tension returning to them as if under command. When he stepped outside, the men were too busy drinking and eating and talking to notice him, and so he made his way across the camp without interruptions.

He spotted Lazar near the wine barrels, talking to another soldier with an arm over Pallas’s shoulder.

“Bring Aimeric to my tent,” Laurent said. “Now.”

Lazar pursed his mouth. “Your Highness, this is my free—”

“You,” Laurent said, turning to the nameless soldier watching him. “Go into the stables and bring me a crop. And be quick about it, in case Lazar decides to run away from his punishment.”

Lazar straightened, let go of Pallas, and said, “Your Highness.”

“Bring Aimeric to my tent,” Laurent repeated, “or I’ll give you twenty lashes.”

Laurent did not stay around to watch them obey. He continued to walk, knowing that each minute that passed was a minute lost, for Auguste and Damianos would not stay away forever.

Once inside his tent, Laurent sat down on his pallet, kicked off his boots, unlaced his vest, and waited.

*

“Your Highness,” Aimeric said, dithering by the entrance with Lazar by his side. It was clear Lazar had not had time to find Jord. “You asked for me?”

Laurent ignored him. “Lazar, where’s the crop I asked for?”

“I did not think you’d need it, Your Highness. I brought the boy.”

Aimeric’s face had blanched at the mention of the whip. “Have I done something to displease you?”

Again, Laurent ignored him. To Lazar, “Leave us. If you send for your Captain, you better bring the crop with you next time you walk into this tent.” And then, as an afterthought, “And that will earn you forty lashes, I believe.”

Lazar nodded once, tightly, and left. He squeezed Aimeric’s shoulder on his way out.

“Your Highness,” Aimeric said, “have I—”

“Kneel.”

Aimeric hesitated. He liked a fight, Laurent knew. He was the wolf dressed in soft, white wool, trying to convince others that he would not bite them. But Laurent could smell the blood in his mouth now.

Eventually, Aimeric sank to his knees. He lifted his chin.

“Tell me,” Laurent said. “Which one do you enjoy more?”

“I don’t understand, Your Highness.”

“Which of the two Kings of Vere is a better lover? You’ve had them both, after all.”

Aimeric’s slow brain took a moment to register the words. He was struggling with himself. To lie or not to lie. “I haven’t—”

“I think you have,” Laurent said and stood up. He paced in a circle around Aimeric. “I think you’d spread for anyone who asked.”

“No.”

Laurent heard the edge in Aimeric’s voice. “I find it quite low, even for you. Fucking your father’s killer. Tell me, how does that work, exactly? Do you close your eyes and pretend—”

“No.”

“—he is my uncle?”

Aimeric turned to him in green-eyed fury, said, “Don’t talk about him.”

“So _he_ is your favorite, then. Auguste will be very disappointed when he finds out. And Jord. I can’t imagine what he’ll say.”

“You’re the only one fucking the King,” Aimeric said, rising. Good. Laurent had always liked his dogs with some fight left in them. “You’d fuck your father too if he was alive.”

Laurent did not strike him for that. He remembered that bright morning in Arles, years ago, when he’d hit Aimeric across the face with a silver goblet. Aimeric, the little bird, the traitor Auguste had refused to execute. Some people just never learned.

Calmly, Laurent said, “Like I fucked my uncle.” He waited for Aimeric to reply, and when he didn’t, Laurent added, “But you knew that already, didn’t you? Because he told you about it.”

Aimeric’s mouth was curling into a hungry smile. How long, Laurent wondered, had he been waiting for this? “He did. He told me everything.”

“Everything.”

“How you seduced him,” Aimeric said. “How you led him to your bed and—”

“At thirteen?” Laurent watched Aimeric’s expression, his snarl like a rabid dog’s. “I suppose I was a late bloomer, compared to you.”

“Shut up. You don’t know anything.”

Laurent smiled. He’d found a nerve to severe, something to cut and slice and hurt. Time was slipping away, and he wanted to make every second of this count, wanted to watch Aimeric kneel again—this time for good.

“He had no choice,” Aimeric said. “He told me about it.”

“Ah, yes. What else did he tell you? That you were pretty and thus deserved pretty things? That a single earring would look nicer than two?”

“Shut up.”

Laurent felt his own scabs bursting with blood and wondered if Aimeric’s had begun to prickle yet. “Did you ever wonder why he never told me about you?”

“He wanted to protect me,” Aimeric said. The shortest of pauses, and then: “He knew you would try to hurt me.”

Laurent tsked. “He knew I don’t like sharing. But you? You could never afford such luxuries, could make no demands. You were his provincial whore for a season, and even during that time—”

“Shut up.”

“—you couldn’t keep him entertained enough. If you had, he wouldn’t have given into my advances.”

Aimeric drew nearer. “He loves me.”

The present tense did not escape Laurent’s notice. _Later_ , he told himself. “I’m sure he loves all the boys he tumbles. But you’re not a boy anymore, are you?” He reached out and patted Aimeric’s cheek lightly, feeling the prickly stubble under his fingers before Aimeric pulled away. “I take it Jord doesn’t know.”

Something flickered in Aimeric’s eyes and then was gone. He did not reply.

“Why does Jord think you’re here?”

Aimeric said, “Stop.”

“You told Jord you’d miss him too much,” Laurent said, probing. He could feel something squirming under the surface of Aimeric’s facade. Something Laurent wanted to kill. “You told him he could have you when the trial was over, as a reward for being such a good Captain. I wonder if he’ll still feel like waiting when he finds out you’re not some blushing virgin.”

“You can’t tell him. Your brother won’t allow it.”

Ah, Auguste. Laurent had almost forgotten about him. “You have a deal with my brother then. He keeps your dirty secret and you testify at his trial.”

“Why did you summon me here if you have all the answers?”

Laurent blinked. “To talk, of course. We have so much in common, the two of us. And you’ve been so respectful, I think you’ve earned a prize.”

Aimeric held his head high. “You can’t hurt me. Your brother needs me too much.”

“Oh, it’s not the crop I have in mind. Aren’t you curious as to how I found out about you?”

“The King must have told you.”

“He did not.”

“A rumor then,” Aimeric said, although he did not sound too confident. “I do not care anyway.”

Laurent took his time with his answer. He wanted to savor this, each word both bitter as grapefruit and sweet as honey. “I met his new pet today,” he said.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t tell you about it in his letters.”

Aimeric’s cheeks were stained with red. “We don’t—He—”

 _He loves me_ , Aimeric had said. Laurent trusted his twisting gut. “I know he sends you notes. I bet they’re short. I bet he hasn’t told you about the new boy in his bed.”

“He’s never written to you,” Aimeric said, all bite. “Never.”

Laurent pushed through the hurt. Waves of pain kept crashing into him. “The boy’s name is Nicaise. He doesn’t look a day older than thirteen.”

“You’re lying.”

“Did you think,” Laurent said, “that he’d take you back?”

Aimeric had begun to crack, but Laurent was just getting started. When Aimeric tried to retreat, Laurent grabbed him by the wrist and held him in place.

“Both of Nicaise’s ears are pierced. He must be a favorite, don’t you think?” Laurent gave Aimeric no time to reply, only tightened his grip, forcing Aimeric to bend at the knees. The bones felt brittle under Laurent’s fingers. He wanted to snap them. “Why would my uncle take you back, all used up and old, when he has a new boy to play with?”

“You’re _lying_.”

“Am I?” Laurent wished for the crop. He said, “I found your little earring.”

Aimeric yanked at his wrist, said nothing.

“Did he ask you to keep it for him? I doubt it. He barely had time to escape as it was, he wouldn’t have wasted his last few moments with you. No.” Laurent leaned in, found Aimeric’s ear, and almost pressed his lips to it. “He did not even have to ask you. You’ve always been stupidly easy. All these years, and you’re still nothing but a—”

“Laurent.”

Laurent straightened. He let go of Aimeric’s wrist and watched him fall back to the ground, unbalanced. “Yes, brother?”

Auguste said, “Lazar, get Aimeric out of here.”

Lazar half-dragged, half-carried Aimeric towards the entrance. Laurent watched them go with contempt. Couldn’t the little vermin walk out on his own?

Auguste stepped in, his shirt untucked at the front and his jacket missing. He paused in front of Laurent, trying to catch his eye. “Where is Damianos?” he asked, wasting no time. “You promised me you’d come back with him.”

“We came back together.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” Laurent said. “I’m not his keeper.”

 _But he is yours_ , Laurent imagined Auguste thinking. “Laurent,” Auguste said instead. He sounded weary and strangely defeated. “Why was Aimeric here?”

“We were talking.” And then, unable to help it, he said, “Don’t be jealous. He’s all yours.”

Auguste’s face contorted. First, hurt. Then, anger. “I just spent hours listening to vile accusations. Must I hear you speak filth as well?”

“I’m sorry to inconvenience you.”

“You don’t—what’s the matter with you?”

Feeling absolutely nothing, Laurent said, “Nothing.”

“Are you unwell?”

“No.”

“Laurent.”

“I said no.”

Auguste touched Laurent’s forehead with the back of his hand. “You look… You shouldn’t have gone with me today.” He paused, dropping his hand to Laurent’s shoulder. “It’s for the best if you stay here tomorrow.”

“All right.”

Auguste frowned. “Now I know you’re not well.” He tried to herd Laurent to the pallet, but Laurent refused to move. “You should sit down.”

Slowly, Laurent said, “I’m not going to faint.”

Both of Auguste’s hands were on his shoulders now. Under different circumstances, Laurent would have been elated. “Have you eaten?”

“Yes,” Laurent lied.

“I haven’t. Would you like to join me?” Auguste gave his shoulder a light squeeze. Laurent had been counting the seconds. Ten, eleven, twelve. Their record was fifteen. “Laurent?”

“I—”

Lord Guillaume’s voice cut him off. He was standing right outside the open tent flaps. “Your Majesty?” he called. And then again, insistently, “Your Majesty?”

Auguste let out a long sigh. His body seemed to deflate slightly, his grip on Laurent’s shoulders tightening for a second before he let go completely. Fourteen seconds. He turned away. “Yes?”

“Lord Jasque and I would like a word with you.”

Auguste rubbed a hand over his face.

“Go,” Laurent said. “I’ve already had lunch.”

“Will you lie down and rest?” Auguste asked, already retreating. “You look—pale.”

Laurent watched him go, his and Lord Guillaume’s voices intertwining and then disappearing. He waited a few minutes, just to be sure Auguste was not coming back, and then he too left the tent.

The sun was high in the sky, blinding. Laurent kept to the shade. There was only Pallas to worry about, but he wasn’t guarding Damianos’s tent when Laurent got there. Perhaps Damianos had not asked him to.

The inside of Damianos’s tent was messier than Laurent’s but just as spacious. There was no table there, only a bed that looked exactly like the one Laurent had slept in the night before. It was unmade—sheets rumpled, a wool blanket touching the ground. Laurent sat down on it, trailing his fingers over the indentations in the pillow.

Laurent looked down at his feet and realized he was not wearing his boots. His vest felt strangely loose, and so Laurent shrugged it off, folded it, and left it at the foot of the bed.

The mattress was not exactly soft, but Laurent found himself reclining against it. The pillows smelled like flushed skin and scented oils. Eventually, Laurent picked the wool blanket from the ground and draped it over himself. Hadn’t Auguste told him to lie down?

He’d rest for a while until Damianos came back from the stream. _I’m bored_ , he’d say. Damianos would laugh. A boyish thought came to him then, just as consciousness was starting to leave him, about the two of them laughing together over a second-hand joke. Carefully, Laurent shunned it away.

He had never felt less like laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! I am beyond sorry for the long wait. Just wanted to thank you all for wishing me good luck! My last exam is this Tuesday, so after that I'm yours. I edited a lot of things in this chapter and I'm sorry if there are more spelling/grammar mistakes than usual, my brain is literally fried. 
> 
> \- [Please check out this amazing drawing by Sophia (yes, it's Auguste, and yes it's giving me dead!Auguste feels)](https://mossygreen-art.tumblr.com/post/624093406358126592/spoilers-for-thickenmybloods-fic-when-the-sun)  
> \- Recently, I put together a little fic rec list. But these two fics were posted AFTER and so I am urging you to read them. If you want to think and cry about Auguste and Laurent's relationship then you NEED to read them. AMAZING. There's some Smaurent there too. Please, read [The Field at Marlas](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25463512) and [Sunset](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25472242) I haven't even had the time to leave a comment on the last one T_T   
> \- There are so many quotes from the books and I know it's very, very lazy of me not to put up references but please know that when I finally have a second to sit down and edit this story I will make sure to point out the exact chapters I stole from.   
> \- I hope you won't murder me for taking away Nicaise's blue earrings from him. I just needed/wanted to experiment a bit with that, hopefully you'll be able to picture him with rubies instead of sapphires. 
> 
> Next chapter will be up on Saturday/Sunday! I'll be a free elf by then, finally done with uni. Thank you for reading!


	20. Eighteen

**Eighteen**

Lazar was waiting for him at the edge of the woods.

Damianos gave his reins a hard and sudden pull, trying to stop Laurent’s mare from running over the guard, and was rewarded by a loud neighing that sounded far too much like a complaint. It made Damianos’s stomach twist, for he knew it could only mean Laurent’s mare was not used to being treated roughly. It seemed like such a Laurent thing to do, to treat every human being around him like scum, and yet pamper his mare to the point of ridiculousness.

The greeting died in Damianos’s mouth when he saw Lazar’s expression. He dismounted right there, not caring that they were still on the outskirts of the camp, and tried very hard not to think the worst.

“Is the Prince all right?” Damianos asked, caring very little about anything else. If something had happened to Laurent while Damianos was supposed to be looking after him, there’d be no hard enough punishment Auguste could deliver.

Lazar’s face lacked its usual slackness, his mouth tight and pursed instead of curled in a wry grin. If he seemed surprised by Damianos’s question, he did not show it. “The King wants to see you, Exalted.”

Damianos tried to control his own expression, something he’d been practicing by copying Laurent. “Has something happened?”

“ _Something_ ,” Lazar muttered under his breath in fast Veretian. It sounded like a snort. “I’ll handle the Prince’s mare. Unless you need to be escorted to the King’s tent?”

Wryly, Damianos said, “I know which one it is, Lazar.” And then, as he handed over the reins, “You should feed her. She gets… fussy.”

Lazar stared at him. “Yes, Exalted.”

Damianos stood for another moment in the path and watched Lazar go, still muttering under his breath. _He likes to mutter_ , Laurent had told Damianos once, _and he thinks no one can hear him. His wet nurse must have dropped him as a babe._ Damianos had laughed; it seemed very unlikely that someone like Lazar had had a wet nurse.

The camp looked strangely calm as Damianos made his way to the blue tent. There were no fires being put out, no enemies attacking, and yet with every step Damianos took his stomach sank deeper, heavy with dread.

Jord was not guarding the entrance. Instead, Auguste had two young men standing outside the closed tent flaps, both of them complete strangers to Damianos. They stood straight-backed and silent as Damianos made his way in, only returning his greeting nod with polite stiffness.

He’d been half-expecting the Lords to be with Auguste inside the tent and was surprised to find Auguste sitting alone at the makeshift table. Without so many people around, the tent looked and felt larger than Damianos remembered it being that very same morning.

Auguste’s crown was on the table, golden and red and looking like it belonged to the south. Damianos had found it beautiful once, but now all it did was remind him that someone else in Vere had claimed that color—perhaps for good.

Even though the sun had not set yet, there were lit candles all over the table, casting shadows on the wobbly walls of the tent. Auguste was looking at them, holding a golden goblet in a loose grip.

“You wanted to see me?” Damianos asked. He waited until Auguste nodded to sit down, barely resisting the urge to ask about Laurent.

Auguste pointed at a pitcher. “Would you like wine?”

“Is it wise to be drinking at this hour?”

“That is not what I asked.”

Damianos hesitated. He did not know how to refuse politely. “Has something happened?” he asked instead.

Auguste brought the goblet to his lips and took a long sip. When he set it down on the table, his mouth had a red tinge to it, as though he’d been out in the woods eating wild berries. His jacket was gone, the laces of his undershirt completely undone, and yet he did not look relaxed. There was no panic in his features, which was a good thing. If something had happened to Laurent, Auguste would not look so calm.

“Where have you been all day?”

Damianos looked around discreetly; there were no paperknives to be seen. “By the stream. I took Laurent there when he got…” Here Damianos hesitated. Auguste noticed and narrowed his eyes. “Bored.”

Auguste took another sip of his wine. “I thought you two were supposed to return to this camp together.”

“We did. The stream is less than a five-minute walk away from here.” Damianos did not want to think about what had happened in the forest. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Auguste said. And then, “Maybe.”

 _He saw us_ , Damianos thought, irrationally. Even if Auguste had seen them, which was impossible, it was not as though he and Laurent had been doing anything wrong. Damianos had simply braided his hair, given him—

No. Damianos would not think about that.

Auguste put the goblet down again. He held his head in his hands, and for a moment neither of them spoke.

“You’re my only friend,” Auguste said casually. Coming from anyone else, the words might have inspired pity, yet from Auguste, they merely sounded like a compliment. “And I keep asking things of you, things you shouldn’t have to do. I—”

“Stop,” Damianos said. “This is the wine talking, not you. What’s brought this on?”

“I’ve written some letters.” Auguste paused, taking in a deep breath. “To my brother. And I want you to give them to him if the trial goes… badly.”

“No.”

Auguste looked up from his hands, surprised. “No?”

“You will win this,” Damianos said, “and there won’t be any need for letters of any kind.”

“Damianos—”

“No. I won’t accept them.”

“I’m thankful for your trust in me,” Auguste said slowly, “but it cannot hurt to be careful. If the trial goes well, then we’ll laugh about it when this is over.”

Damianos wanted to reassure him. He wanted to say that this was not a world in which men like Auguste had to face the sword, that truth would always prevail. And yet he could not, for he knew it would have been a lie. This was the same world that Kastor had lived in, after all.

Finally, Damianos said, “I thought today was supposed to be about presenting the judges. If something happened that we have not planned for—”

“He presented his judges, as I knew he would. But it is always a displeasing experience to see him, as you can imagine.” Auguste grabbed the pitcher, poured himself another drink. The cup was brimming with red wine, so much that it sloshed over the edge of the goblet and dribbled like blood to the table. “I don’t want to talk about the trial anymore, not with you.”

“There’s something troubling you.”

Auguste snorted. “There’s always something troubling me. Tell me, isn’t kingship simply tedious?”

Damianos did not know what to say to that. He and Auguste had been born and raised to rule. Auguste had always seemed to Damianos like a King. It was impossible to imagine him doing anything other than this.

But Vere was hard to rule, harder than Akielos had ever been. _A snarling beast_ , the poets were calling the northern kingdom these days.

“I cannot believe they wanted me to drag one of the pets to the trial.” Auguste laughed. His goblet was now half-empty. “Have you had any of them?”

“Lord Peire’s?” Damianos asked. “He approached me last night after—” _The herald_. “He told me he knew of my preferences, but I politely declined his offer.”

“Your preferences.” There was a pause, during which Auguste drained the remaining half of his drink. “Blonde and pretty, right?”

“Blonde and pretty.” And then, because Damianos wanted to escape the images that such description conjured, he said, “Lord Peire’s pet had mousy hair.”

“Yes. It is uncommon for pets to be blond, or at least as blond as me.”

“Yes,” Damianos said tightly. “You are very… blond.”

“Laurent’s hair is a shade lighter,” Auguste said, not thinking about the implications of mentioning his brother in the middle of a conversation about pets. “When he was younger, all the pets in Arles wanted to look like him. They would soak their hair in chamomile tea to dye it.”

“Oh.”

Suddenly, Auguste’s smile turned wry and acrid. “They thought that it would make me notice them.”

“Auguste—”

But Auguste silenced him with a raised hand. “I do not wish to speak of that, either.”

“Perhaps you should bed one of them,” Damianos said, thinking of the Lords’ suggestions. “Laurent has told me you prefer women, but it cannot hurt to take one of Lord Peire’s pets to bed. If only for one night.”

Auguste gave him a long look. He reminded Damianos of Lazar. “Are you suggesting that because you think it is necessary or because you want to see my brother appeased?”

There was only one person Laurent worried about when it came to Auguste. Damianos said, “I know you’re not fucking Aimeric. And Laurent knows it, too.”

“Does he? He seems rather convinced of the opposite.”

Damianos reached for the pitcher. There was a silver goblet, empty, next to Auguste’s. He poured himself a drink and sipped it eagerly. This was not the sort of conversation he wanted to be having, least of all as sober as he was.

“Aimeric is Laurent’s age,” Damianos said. The knots in his stomach tightened at his own words. “Not only would it be stupid of you to take him to bed, but also ridiculous. Laurent knows this, I think, but he chooses not to acknowledge it.”

“Ridiculous?”

“I know you. He’s too young for you.”

Auguste’s eyes were spearing him into his chair, no longer glazed over by the wine. “And you?”

“What about me?”

“Is Aimeric too young for you?”

Damianos choked on his wine. It dribbled down his chin, soaking the front of his chiton and turning the fabric from white to dark red. He looked like he’d been stabbed. “Of course he—” A coughing fit. “He’s not even—why would I—”

Auguste burst out laughing.

“This is not funny.”

“I think it is,” Auguste said. He sounded too much like Laurent. “Why are you so flustered? I know you’re not a maiden, Damianos.”

Damianos wiped his chin with his hand, trying to get rid of some of the wine. It smelled fermented and acrid, like every other northern wine he had ever tasted. The best vineyards were in the south, which meant neither Damianos nor Auguste had tasted sweet, high-quality Veretian wine in over four years.

“I told you once that in Akielos we don’t fuck boys.”

“Aimeric is far from being a boy,” Auguste said, probing. “He’ll be of age in a few months.”

“Laurent is of age,” Damianos said, without thinking, and watched Auguste grow tense. “I only meant that they’re both far too young to…” He struggled to find the right words. At eighteen, Damianos had not been a virgin. It’d be a lie to say he thought Laurent was too young to take pets. “I do not know what you want me to say.”

Auguste was silent for a while. Damianos watched him sip his wine, not spilling a single drop. He made getting drunk hours before dinner look like the most casual activity, as though he did it every day without fail. Damianos knew that wasn’t the case, for he could count on one hand the times he’d seen Auguste drink wine.

“You’re a better king than I am,” Auguste said. The words felt both cold and hot to Damianos, who could not even begin to decide if he was worthy of such praise. “And a better man, too.”

“Stop.”

“I wonder what my father would think of me if he could see what’s become of his country.”

Here Damianos hesitated. Fathers had never been his area of expertise. “I think he’d be proud of you.”

“Proud? What is there to be proud of?” Auguste said. “I’ve lost half of Vere and my own people hate me. My father would die again if he knew of our alliance. If he knew about what happened to—” He cut himself off. “You’re right, this is the wine talking.”

Damianos gently knocked the goblet out of Auguste’s hand. His fingers were cold, which made Damianos think of Laurent. Auguste squeezed his hand back, almost clinging to it.

“Sometimes I think this is the only thing I’ve done right.”

“This?”

But Auguste ignored the question, said: “I trust you more than any Veretian man in this camp. Tell me that isn’t insanity.”

Damianos looked down at their joined hands. Auguste’s knuckles were white. “You know it isn’t.”

Auguste went quiet again. One of the candles went out, grey smoke rising from the wick, filling the tent with a strange smell that reminded Damianos of wood. It was clear Auguste did not share his brother’s revulsion towards candles.

“I trusted someone once,” Auguste said. One could see him pushing out the words, struggling. Damianos thought of the girl Laurent had told him about and felt pity rise in him. “And he wasn’t—he didn’t—”

 _He_. “Yes?”

But Auguste retreated. He withdrew his hand, grabbed the goblet, and took another sip. “I trust you,” he said firmly, “because I know you won’t hurt Laurent.”

“I won’t.”

“You’ll take him away if I fail again.”

 _Again_. “Yes.”

“You’ll give him my letters.”

Damianos paused. He closed his eyes for just one second, said, “I will.”

“He should have stayed with you,” Auguste said, staring at the inside of his empty goblet. “He had friends in Akielos. He would have been happy.”

“You weren’t there. He would not have been happy away from you.”

“And yet look at what’s become of us. I can’t even—sometimes—” Auguste closed his eyes. “I wish you’d met him before.”

“Before?”

“As a child, he was so sweet. He’d sneak into the stables to feed the horses. He could not go to sleep without hugging me and my mother first. He was… gentle.”

That did not sound like the child Damianos had met in Arles. “Auguste,” he said softly, “I met him as a child. Four years ago.”

“I know you did,” Auguste said, sounding exhausted.

Damianos thought of Laurent at Chastillon, playing with the hounds, letting them lick his face. He thought of Laurent with Dion. Laurent braiding his mare’s hair. _He is gentle_ , Damianos wanted to say.

Auguste pursed his mouth, and his lips disappeared into his beard for a moment. “I’m simply glad you’re here,” he said. He sounded calmer as if getting that off his chest had been what he’d wanted all long.

Awkwardly and not entirely sure whether or not it was the right thing to say, Damianos told him, “I care about Laurent.”

“I know. You two are like brothers by now.” Auguste laughed, a kick to Damianos’s stomach. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he preferred you over me these days.”

Damianos attempted a smile, praying that Auguste was too drunk to see how wobbly and strange it looked. He pushed himself away from the table and checked the pitcher to make sure it was empty.

“It has been a long day,” Damianos said. “You need to lie down before you drink a whole barrel all by yourself.”

“The letters.”

Damianos paused. He was already heading towards the entrance. “In the morning,” he said.

Auguste stood up and swayed slightly. He held onto the table. “I’m going to regret this in the morning.”

“You are. I’ll ask one of your guards to bring you water.”

“And a bucket,” Auguste said, stumbling to his bed. “A big one.”

If it had not been for his sinking stomach, Damianos would have laughed. Auguste and Laurent were so similar, so histrionic. The thought made his insides twist and pull and clench.

Outside the sun was fading fast, and dinner had just begun to be served. Damianos avoided the bonfire, knowing he’d be sick if he so much as tried to put food in his mouth. When Pallas saw him he made as if to escort him, but Damianos waved him away. Pallas liked to talk, mostly about Lazar, and Damianos was not in the mood for that.

He paused outside of Laurent’s tent. A moment passed, clouds shifting over his head. Then Damianos pulled himself away, walking towards his own tent, willing his brain not to think about Laurent and what had happened between them in the forest.

His chiton was wet and clinging to his chest. Before shrugging it off and dumping it on the floor next to the clothes he’d worn the day before, Damianos decided he needed to stretch. His back ached from the hours he’d spent sitting by the river. He began, bringing his arms over his head, and stopped.

At first, he thought someone had poisoned Auguste’s wine. Damianos had only had a sip, but if the poison was strong enough… He walked to the pallet, heart beating wildly in his chest, and blinked at least a dozen times.

Laurent’s clothes were neatly folded at the foot of the bed, the laces of his purple vest glittering silently. Damianos’s pillow was now golden, for Laurent’s braid had come undone and his hair was _everywhere_. He slept on his side, curled around another one of Damianos’s pillows, and his face was so calm he almost did not look like himself.

They had shared a bedroom a hundred times. He’d seen Laurent sleeping in his bed at Chastillon. This was not unusual, for it meant absolutely nothing. _You two are like brothers by now_ , Auguste had said.

Brothers.

Damianos sat down on the edge of the bed, mattress dipping under his weight. Laurent did not stir, only curled tighter around the pillow. Damianos’s brain could not control his hand anymore. There was a small knot in Laurent’s hair—a direct consequence of Damianos’s poor braiding skills—and he took his time untangling it, overly-aware of every silky strand of gold.

The wool blanket was only covering Laurent’s legs. Damianos pulled it higher until only Laurent’s head was peeking out, and tried very hard not to think of how much he wanted to crawl into bed with him. He focused instead on trying to think of where he could spend the night, given that his tent was off-limits.

There was not even a spare blanket he could throw on the ground and Laurent had hoarded all the pillows. If Damianos went to Laurent’s tent, it would raise questions. If he went back to Auguste’s, that would mean explaining who was sleeping in his bed and, most importantly, why.

And what did it mean that Laurent was here, after having run away from the stream and Damianos’s hands? He’d taken off his clothes—his vest, at least—and folded them. He’d crawled under the blanket.

Damianos stood. There were no other options: he’d have to sneak into Laurent’s tent, steal a pillow and a blanket, and drag them back here. In order to avoid being seen, he’d have to wait until after everyone had eaten dinner. That was the safest course to take, for if one of the guards saw him sneaking into the Prince’s tent…

Cold fingers closed around his wrist. When Damianos looked down, he found Laurent’s eyes wide open, staring back at him.

“I…” Damianos cleared his throat. Once, twice. Laurent’s hair was messier than he’d ever seen it. “I’d like a pillow.”

Laurent gave his wrist a tug, attempting to pull him down. Damianos went willingly, sitting back on the edge of the bed. The tent felt smaller with Laurent in it, airless and far too warm.

“You’re not sleeping on the floor,” Laurent said, voice still rough with sleep. He sat up, pushing away the wool blanket Damianos had tucked him in with. “I…”

They were both very still and very silent for a moment. Damianos kept his gaze on Laurent’s small hand, which was still curled around his wrist, telling himself that the goosebumps he felt all over his arm were due to how cold Laurent’s fingers were. Auguste’s hand had been cold tonight as well.

Auguste.

“Did I miss dinner?”

“No,” Damianos said. And then, thinking only of Laurent’s hand on him, he added, “We can eat here if you want.”

A golden frown. “My brother is expecting us.”

“Your brother is in bed, resting.”

Laurent’s grip on him tightened. Panic. “What happened? Is he—is that blood on your—”

“It’s wine.” Damianos tucked a strand of hair behind Laurent’s ear. It was making it hard for him to focus. “Auguste’s had too much to drink, that is all.”

“Auguste doesn’t drink.”

Damianos did not know how to explain the things Auguste had told him in the safety of his tent, the promise Damianos had made. And so he didn’t. “I’ll bring us something to eat.”

“Don’t,” Laurent said. “I’m not hungry.” After a pause, as if remembering Damianos was not a slave, he added, “You should eat. Something. If you want to.”

“I’m not hungry either.”

Laurent did not say anything to that. He looked down at his hand probably for the first time, yet he did not let go of Damianos’s wrist. His pale thumb brushed over the spot where Damianos’s body gave away its pulse. It felt like a caress.

“Laurent,” Damianos said. _Why are you here?_ he wanted to ask. Instead, “You should go back to sleep.”

“And where will _you_ sleep?”

“The floor here is not nearly as hard as the one at Chastillon,” Damianos said. He watched Laurent’s expression darken, his blonde eyebrows touching. “I only need another blanket. I’ll fetch one from your tent once dinner is over. I’m sorry that I woke you.”

“You didn’t. I wasn’t asleep.”

Damianos smiled. How could he not, when Laurent was looking at him like that? “I saw you drooling on my pillow.”

“You didn’t,” Laurent insisted. There was a faint blush to his cheeks now, a look Damianos had only seen on him once or twice when they had spent too much time under the sun. “Dinner won’t be over for some time.”

“And?”

“You should stay here in the meantime.”

“Here,” Damianos repeated. “With you?”

Laurent pursed his mouth. “Unless you’d rather call for a pet?”

Damianos sighed. He used his free hand to undo the straps of his sandals, overly-aware of Laurent’s eyes on him. He undid the belt of his chiton, slipped the golden dagger under the bed, and paused. The wine stain felt damp against his chest, but he did not wish to undress in front of Laurent, which only left him one option.

He lay down on his back, trying to avoid the wine stain from transferring to the sheets.

“Your chiton is dirty,” Laurent said. He let go of Damianos’s wrist, only to poke at Damianos’s chest with his finger. It came away red.

“It is.”

Laurent shifted, lying next to Damianos. The pallet was big, meant for a king, yet Laurent managed to press the entirety of his side into Damianos’s. They were touching, from ankle to shoulder, and Damianos’s heart was beating so loudly it seemed impossible Laurent could not hear it. It seemed to bounce off the cloth walls and back at them, like a drum.

Damianos felt Laurent turn his head, the weight of two blue eyes boring into his profile. He kept his own glued to the ceiling, afraid of what might happen if he turned as well. They were so close their noses would most likely brush. He’d lean in, and everything would fall apart.

“I want to ask you something,” Laurent said.

“Only if I get to ask you something in return. You know the rules.”

“I know them.”

“Ask me, then.”

Laurent’s warm breath hit Damianos’s cheek. This was the closest to Laurent’s mouth he’d ever been, and they were not even facing each other. Damianos stared hard at the ceiling, missing the one back home.

“You used to touch your stomach,” Laurent said, “when you were upset.”

That was not what Damianos had been expecting. “I,” he started, and stopped. Had he ever told this to anyone? “That is not a question.”

“Can I see?”

“See what?”

Calmly, Laurent said, “The scar.”

A million questions slammed into Damianos— _how did you know, who told you, why are you asking this of me_ —and yet he asked none of them. Instead, he unclasped the pin that held his chiton together at the shoulder and peeled it off enough to show Laurent the scar where the blade had cut him.

Damianos held himself very still as Laurent sat up on the pallet to get a better look. When one of Laurent’s icy cold fingers traced over the scar, Damianos did not startle or complain. He’d been expecting it.

“Kastor.”

“Yes,” Damianos said, meaning to stop there. But then the words were pouring out of his mouth like it always happened when he had the chance to speak of his brother. “We were… dueling. I don’t remember much of it.” And then, eyes to the ceiling, “It was an accident.”

“Did it hurt?” Laurent asked. It was a child’s question.

“Yes,” Damianos answered. “There was a lot of blood.”

“Do you hate him?”

Damianos could have avoided the question. Laurent had already asked three different things in the span of a few minutes, which was not how this game worked. But it had been so long since he’d talked about Kastor, _truly_ talked about him, that Damianos felt the ache of it all deep inside him, pulsing through his body, in the scar Laurent was still touching.

“Sometimes I do.”

“And when you don’t?”

Damianos sat up slowly so as to not startle Laurent. “I think about the games we played. The olives. I miss him.”

Laurent’s knuckles brushed against Damianos’s stomach. He’d clenched his fists at some point but hadn’t moved away. Now that they were both sitting and facing each other, it would have been easy for Damianos to say what he’d wanted to back in the forest. Perhaps Laurent would stay put, fist pressed to Damianos’s skin. Perhaps he would not strike.

“How can you miss someone you hate?” Laurent asked. This was his fifth consecutive question.

“Because I didn’t hate everything about Kastor. He was kind, sometimes. And funny. When he died…” Damianos paused. “It was like the only Kastor I could remember was the one I loved.”

Laurent tilted his head to the side, listening. It was rare for him to be so quiet.

“That first year,” Damianos said, “was the worst. I could not even bear to hear my father mention him. I wanted everyone to remember Kastor the way I did, or else not at all.” He curled his hand over Laurent’s, holding it in place. “But that Kastor wasn’t real.”

“But there was good about him,” Laurent argued. “You said so yourself. He was kind.”

Damianos did not think they were talking about Kastor anymore. “I’ve learned to love him for what he was and to despise him for the same reason. People are not—they are what they are, no matter how different you’d like them to be.”

Laurent pressed his forehead against Damianos’s naked shoulder. His breath was warm and cold at the same time, hitting Damianos’s arm in gusts, and it did not hitch when Damianos put his hand on Laurent’s head.

“It’s your turn,” Laurent said.

The tent had gotten darker, a sign that the sun had most likely set. Damianos knew there were candles somewhere, but lighting them would mean getting up from the bed and leaving Laurent. He thought, for a second, of asking Laurent about that. _Candles_ , he’d say, and Laurent would answer.

He twisted his fingers in Laurent’s hair, trying to get rid of the knots he had missed earlier. “Nicaise,” he said, and felt Laurent grow tense and stiff and wrong against him. Perhaps he should have asked about the candles. “Why did he upset you so much?”

“He didn’t upset me.”

“Then what did?”

“I,” Laurent started. His fingers were digging into Damianos’s scar, not gently. “He reminded me of someone.”

“Did he?”

And then Laurent shifted, lifting his head so he could stare at Damianos’s face. “He’s pretty.”

“Yes,” Damianos said, because it was the truth.

“Would you fuck him?”

Damianos’s fingers stilled in Laurent’s hair. He felt himself recoil, tried to stop it but couldn’t. “Of course not.” And then, when Laurent did not reply, “He’s a child.” And then again, when the silence had become deafening, “ _No_.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s just a boy.” He watched Laurent’s mouth open but cut him off before the words had even started to come out. “He’s what, fourteen? You were that age when we met.”

Laurent’s face twisted. “I was thirteen.”

“Laurent.”

“It’s my turn.”

“Don’t,” Damianos said. “What is this about?”

“It’s a game,” Laurent said. “I ask you a question, you answer it. Then it’s your turn.”

Damianos bit his tongue. Frustration was warming his head, making it hard to focus, but it was clear Laurent would give him no answers. When he got like this, Damianos knew, there was no use in trying to pry the words out of his mouth. If cornered, Laurent would do what wounded hounds did: bite and snarl and hurt.

“Your hair is a mess.”

Laurent blinked, thrown-off. “I—what?”

Slowly, Damianos raised his hands. He pushed Laurent’s hair away from his face, letting it drape over his back instead. A stubborn lock got away. Damianos tucked it behind Laurent’s ear for the second time that day.

“I don’t have a comb here,” Damianos said. “You should probably braid it again before going to sleep, or it’ll be impossible to untangle in the morning.”

Laurent pursed his mouth. “That’s not a question.”

“It wasn’t my turn to ask, anyways.”

“Why haven’t you send me away? You haven’t even asked me why I’m here. I—in your bed. You haven’t—”

“Do you want me to?” Damianos asked. He liked this Laurent better, flustered and upset but for the right reasons. He was almost sweet, like this. “I think dinner is over. Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat?”

Laurent watched him stand up and fix his chiton. “Where are you going?”

“To your tent. I need another blanket.”

“Why?” Laurent asked. His fingers were dangerously close to Damianos’s wrist again. “There’s a blanket here.”

“It’s cold tonight,” Damianos said. “You’ll need it.”

“We can share it.”

They could. Damianos saw it all for one second—a soft, pale thigh draped over his own, Laurent hoarding all the sheets—and then it was gone. There were lines that shouldn’t be crossed; this was one of them.

They couldn’t.

“I’ll be back,” Damianos said, trying to smile. “If I find a brush, I’ll bring it to you.”

The camp was quiet. Dinner without Auguste must have been a short thing, for there were no drunk guards roaming the place or Lords walking to their tents in the company of pets. Damianos did not see anyone, but he still made sure to go as silently as he could.

Once inside he took his time collecting the things he’d need. Laurent’s blanket was thicker than his and thus heavier. The silver brush was on the small wooden table, along with the book about Akielon history Damianos had started reading the day before. He hesitated for a second and, on a whim, decided to take them both. Finally, he snatched the smallest pillow from Laurent’s bed and walked back to his own tent, arms full and aching.

“A little help?” he told Laurent, staggering inside. It was darker than Damianos remembered.

Laurent was sitting on the floor. “I think you’re doing fine.”

Damianos dumped everything on the pallet and turned to him. “Why are you down there?”

“I took the bed at Chastillon,” Laurent said. “It’s your turn now.”

“You’re not sleeping there, Laurent.”

“Why not?”

“Your back will hurt in the morning,” Damianos said. It was the first thing he could think of. “Come on.”

“I’ll stretch.”

Damianos crouched down in front of him. “Laurent.”

“Damianos.”

“Fine.”

Damianos grabbed the pillow and let it fall to the floor along with the grey blanket he’d brought from Laurent’s tent. Since there were no candles to blow out and no servants to be dismissed, Damianos simply lay down on top of the wool and tried his best to fluff the pillow under his head.

“What are you doing?” Laurent asked, shoving him. “The bed is empty.”

“I can’t hear you,” Damianos said into the pillow. “I am sleeping already.”

“Damianos.”

“Goodnight.”

Laurent hit him with something soft. A pillow, most likely. “ _Damianos_.” There was a pause, the sound of rustling sheets. When Laurent spoke again, he was closer than before. “Goodnight.”

Damianos lifted his head from the pillow, only to find Laurent lying next to him on the floor. It was dark, but Damianos knew Laurent was looking at him. He could always tell.

Holding himself very still, Damianos said, “I’m not taking the bed.”

“Neither am I.”

It had been a long day. Between the riding and the hours he had spent sitting by the stream after Laurent had left, it felt as though Damianos had not rested for even a second. He simply did not have the energy that arguing with Laurent for hours required.

“We can share the bed then,” Damianos said into the darkness. All he had to do was make sure Laurent fell asleep before he did, and slip back to the floor. “Unless you dislike that option as well.”

They moved the pillows and blankets back to the pallet. In complete silence, Damianos lowered the brush and the book, putting them next to the dagger on the floor. Once the pallet looked like a bed again—or as close to a real bed as it was possible—Damianos waited until Laurent had settled to lay down.

Damianos kept to the edge of the bed, one foot set on the floor. Between them, a hundred miles of mattress and rumpled sheets.

“Can you,” Laurent started. Just as Damianos was opening his mouth to ask him what was wrong, he said, “Tell me a joke.”

“Which ones do you like more?”

“Just—no more physician jokes. They’re terrible.”

And so Damianos said, “The court barber sat the king down and asked him how he wanted his hair cut. And the king said: ‘In silence.’”

Laurent shifted. His frozen fingers curled around Damianos’s elbow. He did not speak.

“Two Akielons were riding to the north. One of them said, ‘Can you lend me your knife until we’ve reached Delpha?’ and the other replied, ‘I do not have one that reaches that far.’”

There was a snorted laugh, muffled into a pillow. Damianos placed a hand over Laurent’s fingers, trying to warm them up. He knew this was wrong. He wanted Laurent, and that would leave him hollowed out and aching, for Laurent could never want him back.

But it was so easy to pretend like this. In the dark, there was no need for words. There was only this—their breathing, Damianos’s fluttering heart, Laurent moving closer.

“Another one,” Laurent said, commanding and yet soft. His warm breath hit Damianos’s shoulder.

“I only remember the ones you won’t like.”

“Physician jokes.”

“Please,” Laurent said.

“There was a man in Kesus. He went to see a physician because his wife hated kissing him. He said: ‘There must be something wrong with my breath’.”

“I know that one,” Laurent said, sounding pleased. “The physician said: ‘There isn’t, you’re just ugly.’”

Damianos laughed.

A few jokes later, Laurent’s breathing had evened out. His hand had moved lower, resting on Damianos’s stomach, right over his scar. It was unusually warm.

*

At some point in the night, after managing to pry Laurent’s fingers away, Damianos sunk to the floor, dragging a pillow down with him. He closed his eyes and thought of Auguste. _You’re my only friend_ , he’d said. _I know you won’t hurt Laurent._ He thought of Nikandros’s pinched face as he begged Damianos to sleep alone.

 _I’m sorry_ , he thought. _I’m sorry_.

*

In the morning, Damianos woke up to an empty bed and a wooden bowl of berries by his head. Laurent was nowhere to be seen, just as silently gone as that morning at Chastillon. By the time Damianos had washed and changed, almost every man in Auguste’s party was ready to leave, including Laurent.

Auguste did not try to argue with his brother about staying this time. He simply rode ahead, leading the Lords and the guards through the forest, all the while rubbing at his temples. Damianos could only feel sorry for him, knowing too well how awfully bright and noisy the world always seemed after a night spent drinking.

Laurent was dressed immaculately, as usual. His hair was not the mess Damianos had been expecting it to be after a night spent tossing and turning. Instead, Laurent had braided it tighter than Damianos had ever seen it, a plait that did not stir in the wind as he rode. It was hard to reconcile this Laurent, cold and distant and stiff, with the one who’d laughed in Damianos’s bed the night before.

The castle was as quiet as the camp had been. It felt like a strange repetition of the day before, for the same herald was waiting for them at the front steps, the same words falling from his mouth. Auguste was not wearing his crown today, which seemed to Damianos like the only difference between yesterday and today.

The Lords dismounted first. Damianos watched them and tried not to think about how Auguste’s life depended on them voting for him to live. He didn’t understand yet how Veretian trials worked, even after reading all those books Laurent had forced on him back in Arles. To him, Veretian laws seemed overly complicated and pompously written.

At last, Auguste swung off his horse and faced the herald. Words Damianos could not hear were exchanged. The herald frowned, but lead the way inside the castle all the same.

Laurent did not try to follow his brother. Instead, he dismounted and stood by his horse as if waiting for something. After a moment, Damianos realized he was the one Laurent was waiting for.

He swung off his horse in silence, trying to ignore the gnawing feeling that today would not be a pleasant day. Attending this trial was the only thing Laurent had talked about for weeks, and now he seemed distracted, looking over the guards’ shoulders and at his uncle’s court.

“I want to go to the gardens again,” Laurent said. When he noticed that Damianos was moving towards the guards, he added in Akielon, “Don’t. Just the two of us this time.”

Damianos had forgotten his dagger under the pallet. “No.”

“Do you trust me?”

“What are you doing?” Damianos asked instead of answering the question. He knew the answer, had always known it. “I thought you wanted to attend the trial. It’s supposed to start today, why are you—”

“Do you trust me?” Laurent’s expression was closed off, nothing tender or sweet about it. He was not asking Damianos about his feelings, maybe because he had none himself, but rather about something tactical **.** About strategy.

 _You’d be an idiot to trust me_ , Laurent had told him once. That Laurent had been thirteen, drifting away in his own head at the most unfortunate times, driving Damianos mad with just a few sharp words. How much, he wondered, had truly changed between them since then?

“Yes,” Damianos said. “You know I do.”

“Then do this for me,” Laurent said. “With me.”

That was the close to begging Laurent had ever come. Damianos knew it was foolish, and yet he found himself nodding along to Laurent’s request. He commanded the guards to stay where they were in the courtyard and walked with Laurent towards the east, where the rose gardens were.

Laurent’s hand brushed against his as they walked. Once, twice. Damianos’s fingers twitched, aching to hold onto Laurent’s. They’d be cold, Damianos knew. They were always cold in the mornings.

Instead of heading towards the fountain, Laurent took a sharp turn to the left and into the stone hall. Damianos followed him in silence, being mindful of where he stepped. He was beginning to understand why Laurent had dragged him here.

Nicaise was not hiding behind any of the pillars. Damianos had not expected him to be, given the scolding the child had received from that guard the day before. The hall was eerily empty, and just when Damianos was opening his mouth to speak Laurent pressed him against a column.

Instead of explaining himself, Laurent pointed at the fountain.

At first glance, the gardens looked deserted. There were no guards in red cloaks and all of Auguste’s men were still at the courtyard. The only sound that Damianos could hear clearly was that of the water rushing through the holes of the fountain, beneath the sculpture of the grinning boy. Not even a breeze was shaking the roses.

And then Damianos heard the bells.

“Stay here,” Laurent said, and it took a moment for Damianos to realize he was the one Laurent was addressing. “He’s scared of you.”

“I—”

Laurent held two fingers to Damianos’s lips, frowning. “Be quiet.”

Damianos could not open his mouth, not until Laurent retrieved his fingers. He nodded.

Laurent moved away. He walked to the fountain in a straight line, making sure his footsteps could be heard. Damianos wondered if he knew where Nicaise was, but his question was answered instantly when Laurent sat down on the marble edge and made a beckoning gesture.

It took everything in Damianos not to go to him.

Nicaise’s head emerged from the sea of green and red, brown curls carefully tousled, as though he’d spent hours on each one. White and red pearls had been woven into his hair. They looked like a circlet, glimmering under the pale sunlight. His scowl looked anything but threatening, all cherub-like cheeks and pout.

“I know you’re not alone,” Nicaise said to Laurent, moving towards him. “I saw him.”

“Don’t mind him. He forgot his dagger today.”

Damianos fought the rising panic in him. What was Laurent playing at, telling this boy Damianos had no weapons on him?

Nicaise was wearing casual Veretian clothes, which made him look older than last time Damianos had seen him. His vest and pants were a burgundy color, a red so deep it looked purple. All his laces—back, forearms, calves—were undone, as though he could not be bothered to spend a minute of his time tying them.

Or as though he didn’t know how.

“He looks combative,” Laurent said, shifting to make room for Nicaise to sit, “but he’s really very docile and adoring. Like a puppy.”

Nicaise was still scowling. He sat down, crossed-legged, on the marble edge. From where he was standing, Damianos could see Nicaise was wearing shoes this time.

“What do you want?” Nicaise asked. He turned his head to face Laurent. Bells, bells, bells. “This is my garden.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“Why were you hiding, then?”

Nicaise did not reply.

“My uncle’s guard was upset you were here yesterday,” Laurent said. His voice was like a murmur of sorts, barely heard over the rushing water. He had never spoken to Aimeric like this. “Will you get into trouble for this?”

“Govart isn’t the King’s guard,” Nicaise said. Petulant, condescending. The only person this child reminded Damianos of was thirteen-year-old Laurent. “And he’s not here, anyways. He’s at the trial.”

“I see,” Laurent said. “It must be tediously boring. Be glad you’re not allowed to attend it.”

The look Nicaise gave Laurent made Damianos squirm. “And who told you that?”

“No one.” A pause. “You’re too young, at thirteen.”

“I’m not thirteen,” Nicaise said, venomous and bitter. “Why aren’t _you_ at the trial? Isn’t your lover there?”

Laurent went very still, unlike all the other times Damianos had seen him react to someone accusing him of sleeping with his brother. Usually, Laurent would simply bite back, say something hurtful. This time all he did was lower his hand to the water, dipping two fingers in.

“Do you like to play games?”

Nicaise blinked. His eyelashes were so thick it was a wonder he could keep his eyes open. “Games?”

Laurent reached into the inside pocket of his vest, pulled something out, and hid it from view in his clenched fist. “Guess,” he said. His left hand was still in the water.

“Guess _what_?”

“What I’ve got in my hand,” Laurent said patiently. “If you get it right, it’s yours.”

Nicaise made a clicking sound with his tongue. “This is stupid.”

“Maybe.”

“It could be anything,” Nicaise said, and that’s how Damianos knew Laurent had him. There was a challenge there, something going on between the two of them Damianos could not understand. It was like staring at a letter written in another language, only some words close enough to one’s mother tongue. Everything else was a guess. “A pin.”

Laurent smiled. “No. Try again.”

“A ring.”

“No.”

“I don’t care what it is,” Nicaise snapped.

“Do you want a clue?”

“No.”

“You need it to play a game.”

Nicaise rolled his eyes. “It could still be anything.” He was leaning in now, trying to take a peek through Laurent’s fingers. Hesitantly, “A dice?”

Laurent opened his hand. The dice was red, sitting on the center of Laurent’s pale palm like a wound. He did not move away when Nicaise reached for it and held it close for inspection.

“I’ll teach you how to play,” Laurent said, “if you’d like.”

“What language is this?”

To Damianos’s surprise, Laurent said, “Akielon. An old friend gave it to me.”

Nicaise looked at it for a while, running his thumb over the carved faces. “The puppy?”

“A different friend.”

“I prefer cards.”

Laurent said, “I know.” The hand he’d kept in the water was now raised, hovering close to Nicaise’s head. For a split-second, Damianos was worried Laurent would strike him. And then the hand went back into the water, trembling. “Do you want me to teach you?”

“Do you think I’m stupid? That I don’t know what you’re doing?”

Damianos stepped forward, but a look from Laurent kept him in place. Had he not heard the warning in Nicaise’s voice? He’d sounded just like Laurent seconds before a snarling match.

“I think,” Laurent said calmly, “that if you were stupid you would not be sitting here with me.”

Nicaise stretched. He looked like a cat waking up from a nap. “I was bored, that is all. Don’t flatter yourself.”

“I—” Laurent huffed out a laugh. He followed Nicaise’s slow movements with his eyes. “You look better like this.”

Nicaise stopped. “Like this?”

“Without the earrings and the camisole. With shoes on.”

“Do you think a compliment will impress me? It won’t. I get them all the time.”

Laurent smiled. There was something sad about it, although it was hard to tell from such a distance. Damianos took another step forward, unable to help himself. When it came to Laurent, it seemed he could not help but cross all the lines.

“I know you do,” Laurent said. “I used to get them too when I was your age.”

Nicaise did not seem to like that. He stood, offended, and clenched his fists. There was a flash of movement—red—and the sound of something sinking in the water.

“You don’t anymore,” Nicaise said, “because you’re old. I asked.”

Laurent, in a strange voice: “Yes.”

“Your brother is going to die.”

To that, Laurent said nothing.

“And then you’ll die too. He’ll cut off your head.”

“I think he won’t,” Laurent said. He was now on his feet as well, towering over the child. “In fact, I know it.”

Nicaise was red in the face, anger blooming on his cheeks. “You’re not the Prince here. He can do whatever he wants.”

“Of course he can. He’s the King.”

The words made Damianos take a step back.

“He won’t cut my head off,” Laurent said. “I bet you your earrings.”

Nicaise’s hands went to his ears, touching something that was not there. “And what do I get if I win?”

Almost lazily, Laurent said, “Whatever you want.”

“Your ears aren’t even pierced.”

“One of them is.” Laurent tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, showing off the dotted lobe. “See?”

Now Nicaise’s face was redder. Had Laurent ever blushed like that, as a child? To Damianos he’d always looked the same: pale and mad. Whether it was shame or anger turning Nicaise’s cheeks crimson, Damianos did not know.

“If I’m right,” Nicaise said, “who’s going to give me my prize? Your head will be on a spike.”

 _A prince’s head does not belong on a spike_ , Laurent would say. He’d said it before. But then Damianos remembered this was the south. There were no princes here.

“Damianos will.”

As if summoned, Damianos crossed the distance that separated them and stopped next to Laurent, trying his hardest not to frown at the boy before him. The bizarre urge to ruffle Nicaise’s hair came over Damianos for a moment, just as it had years ago when Laurent had been sulking or when Dion had managed to throw a spear far enough. But Nicaise’s hair looked stiff with all the jewels in it, untouchable.

Damianos wondered what sort of person would gift something like that to a child.

“You should go now,” Laurent said. It did not sound like the sharp dismissals Damianos was used to hearing from him. “Before someone sees you here.”

“This is _my_ garden,” Nicaise said. A whine. “You leave.”

Damianos placed a hand on Laurent’s shoulder, subtly holding him back. It was strange he had not snapped yet, but Damianos would rather take no chances. Laurent did not flinch away from the touch, did not even acknowledge it.

“We can’t,” Damianos said. “We’re supposed to wait until King Auguste is ready to ride.”

“It’s all right,” Laurent said. Then, to Nicaise, “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“I don’t care.”

Damianos had never heard anyone talk to Laurent that way. And yet Laurent let it slide, as though it was nothing. Had this been Aimeric, Laurent would have whipped him to death.

“Your dice,” Damianos said in a low voice, trying to keep Nicaise from hearing him.

Laurent simply waved him off. _Later_ , Damianos imagined him saying. When he started walking, Damianos followed. It should have been shameful, perhaps, to obey another man like this when he himself was a King, but with Laurent, there was never any room for shame.

Shame only came to him at night, in the quiet hours when he allowed himself to think about Auguste.

“What are you doing?”

Laurent’s fingers brushed against his as they walked away. Nicaise was behind them, watching. “I want to see the stream again.”

“Laurent.”

“Damianos.”

“Why?” Damianos asked. “You’ll miss the trial. I thought you wanted—” _This_. “I don’t understand.”

“But you trust me anyways,” Laurent said. His hand closed around Damianos’s wrist. Neither of them stopped walking. “The first day is nothing but swearing oaths, writing down witnesses. The game starts tomorrow.”

Helplessly, Damianos said, “You lost your dice.”

“I didn’t. Nicaise will go back for it once we’ve gone.”

“Laurent.”

“You keep saying my name,” Laurent said, “and then you stop. It’s distracting.”

“It’s meant to be.”

They had reached the courtyard. There was red all around them, and Damianos’s stomach had not settled yet, but with Laurent leaning so close against him it was hard to remember why they were here in the first place, what they were risking.

“The stream,” Laurent said, close enough that Damianos felt the outline of Laurent’s lips against his ear. “I… liked it there.”

Despite it all, Damianos could not help but feel pleased with those words. “Did you?”

“Yes.” Laurent tilted his head to look up at the sky. In Akielon: “I think it’s pretty.”

“ _Pretty_ ,” Damianos corrected him. It was a beginner’s mistake, something Laurent had not struggled with in years. Damianos felt the hurt spreading in his chest when he realized what that meant. “It is.”

“Auguste will be back soon. We should go now, the water will only get colder the more we wait.”

They were running away again, Damianos realized, except this time Laurent was the one holding the reins and pointing the way. All Damianos could do was follow.

*

They should have stayed in the forest.

Laurent was still soft with sleep, sagging against him as they rode into the camp. He’d napped the morning away on the riverbank, only waking up when the sun had hidden behind a cloud for too long. Damianos had let him, telling himself that tonight he would ask all his questions and finally get all his answers.

The closer they got to the tents, the clearer it became that something was wrong. The noise set Laurent’s mare off, forcing neighs and whines from her as Damianos had never heard them. She wanted to turn around and flee.

It sounded like playful banter, at first. And then the voices sharpened, words taking shape. Someone was crying. There was shouting.

 _A mutiny_ , Damianos thought. Against who?

Laurent straightened but did not speak a word. He pulled at his reins and commanded his mare to ride faster instead of retreating into the silent safety of the forest behind them.

Auguste’s party had not returned yet, which made Damianos involuntarily relax. Perhaps he and Laurent could fix this before Auguste returned, perhaps Auguste would not even need to be told this had happened.

Dismounting without a saddle was difficult, especially when Damianos was not the only rider. He tried to land gracefully and then helped Laurent get down as well.

The men were gathered around the bonfire, which was lit. Smoke rose from it in waves, black and grey and foul-smelling. It was impossible for Damianos to see what was happening because all of Auguste’s men had formed a tight circle around the fire, obviously watching something.

Laurent advanced faster than him. “What are you doing?”

The circle broke, some of the men scattered. Laurent kept trying to get closer to the center, but the small sea of soldiers was not moving quickly enough.

“Your Highness,” came Lazar’s voice.

Laurent stopped walking so abruptly Damianos bumped into him, almost sending the two of them tumbling into the roaring fire. Its heat was uncomfortable and so was its light. Damianos tugged on Laurent’s vest to keep him away from the licking flames.

At their feet, Aimeric had been gagged with a piece of cloth, hands tied behind his back. A guard was stepping on his ankle, keeping him from getting up. The awful smell was of burnt hair. Aimeric’s head was so close to the bonfire a curl or two had caught on fire, turning black. His face was bloody and covered in dirt, as though the men had taken turns hitting him.

Kneeling next to him was Jord, his hands tied behind his back as well.

“I found the traitors, Your Highness,” another guard said before Lazar could explain. Damianos did not know his name, but he knew who the man was. Nine fingers and a half. “I always knew this one was bad news.”

Laurent only had eyes for Jord. “What did you do?”

Jord looked pale but solemn, not a bruise on his face. “Nothing, Your Highness.”

“He’s lying.” The guard stepped hard on Aimeric’s ankle. There was a loud, cracking sound, followed by Aimeric’s muffled crying. “Tell him, Captain.”

“Stop that,” Jord said. It was clearly the wrong thing to say, for the other guard only lifted his feet and brought it down again, grinding Aimeric’s ankle to dust. “I said _stop_.”

“I’ll decide when he stops,” Laurent said. “Now speak before I lose my patience.”

Jord held Laurent’s gaze. “I would never betray the King.”

“He was helping the boy cover his tracks, that’s what he was doing. Your Highness, I heard them discussing—”

“If I were you, Antoine, I’d shut my mouth now,” Laurent said slowly. “Unless you want me to cut the rest of your fingers off.”

Antoine paled at the threat, said nothing. The man kicking Aimeric relented when Damianos shot him a quelling look.

“This,” Lazar said, “is a misunderstanding.”

“I would never betray the King,” Jord said again. Then, as if it pained him to say it, “Your Highness.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” Laurent said. “But what about little Aimeric?”

Aimeric closed his eyes and hid his face in the dirt. He had never looked more like a child to Damianos. _Seventeen_ , he thought. _Laurent will kill him_.

“He’s just a boy,” Jord said as if reading Damianos’s mind. Perhaps everyone by the fire was thinking the exact same thing. “Let him explain himself to the King. He’s—he doesn’t know any better.”

Laurent crouched down on the ground. His fingers got lost in Aimeric’s wild curls. It was a soft gesture, the petting of a wounded animal. And then Laurent tugged at it, forcing Aimeric to lift his head and look at him, a scream of pain silenced by the cloth in his mouth.

Laurent pressed a finger to Aimeric’s bleeding eyebrow. “I see the men have had their fun with you.” He leaned in and whispered something only Aimeric could hear. “Don’t you agree?”

Lazar tried to intervene again. “Your Highness, there is no proof of these accusations. The King—”

“There _is_ proof,” Antoine said. “The boy said something about a note. He was even begging the captain not to tell on him.”

“And where is that note?” Damianos asked.

He wanted to take Laurent away from here, wanted him to be kind again like he’d been to Nicaise. But perhaps Damianos had been fooling himself about this, too. People were what they were, and maybe this was what Laurent was. Maybe Damianos was a fool for trusting him, just like Auguste had been a fool to trust Aimeric and Jord.

Maybe trust always made fools out of men.

“There is no note,” Jord said calmly. “This is simply Antoine’s idea of revenge.”

Antoine looked equal parts panicked and angry. “Your Highness, I—”

“Shut up,” Laurent said. “This is my second warning, Antoine. There won’t be a next one.” He let go of Aimeric and stood up again. “Huet, bring me a crop.”

Jord’s eyes met Damianos’s.

“Your Highness,” Lazar tried _again_. “There really is no need for this.”

“Was I talking to you, Lazar? I did not think so. Huet, a crop.”

Damianos could not let this happen. “No,” he heard himself saying. “That’s enough, Laurent.”

Slowly, Laurent turned to face him. It was as though he’d forgotten Damianos was there. He did not look surprised, simply displeased. “You’re a guest here,” he said. “Nothing more. These are my brother’s men and they’ll do what I tell them to do.”

“Laurent—”

“Is the crop not a good enough punishment, in your opinion?” Laurent said. “There are other ways to make a boy talk. Not that Aimeric would find those particularly terrible.”

The words took a moment to register. Huet had disappeared, which could only mean he’d be back with the whip in no time. Horror pulsed through Damianos, his sinking stomach suddenly rising inside of him like bile.

Jord was begging in earnest now. “—lying, he’s lying—Aimeric isn’t—”

“Gag him,” Laurent said, “and bring them both to my tent.”

“No,” Damianos said. This was the loudest and sharpest he’d ever spoken to Laurent. All movement around them ceased, heads turning to look at him. “I won’t let you do this.”

“Let me?” Laurent moved closer. His fingers closed around Damianos’s wrist, thumb brushing over that spot where Damianos’s pulse could be felt through the skin. “This is Vere, not Akielos. It’ll do you good to remember that.” Closer. Laurent’s cheek against his. A hundred eyes on them. “Do you trust me?”

 _No_ , Damianos wanted to say. He was not nineteen anymore, he knew the price one had to pay for misplaced trust. He’d thought Laurent knew it, too.

There were a million Laurents, all of them different and contradictory. Laurent, gifting a dice to a boy, laughing in Damianos’s bed, sleeping by the stream with his head on Damianos’s lap. Laurent, calling his uncle the King, antagonizing his brother, threatening to let the men do as they pleased to Aimeric.

With Kastor, things had been different, easier. There had only ever been two sides of him: Kastor, his brother. Kastor, the traitor.

How many times, Damianos wondered, could one be an absolute fool?

“Yes,” he said.

It was only the truth, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! I think if this chapter had a title, it would definitely be "Trust". I know there wasn't a lot of Lamen fluff in this, but I promise you will be rewarded. SOON. The trial keeps getting postponed but it's happening, get ready because it won't be pretty. Nothing I write ever is T_T
> 
> \- Please, PLEASE, [check out this drawing of Nicaise by Sophia!](https://mossygreen-art.tumblr.com/post/624825689410093056/thickenmyblood-yes-this-is-nicaise-with-rubies) He is the sweetest baby boy on earth (yes, he could kill a man with a fork, but still). And then [THIS drawing of Aimeric and Laurent that is just... ](https://mossygreen-art.tumblr.com/post/625079888426270720/a-drawing-which-i-proudly-name-i-dont-understand) SO poetic. I love parallels so much, I will DIE. 
> 
> \- [Heather drew something inspired by this story!](https://heatherdrawings.tumblr.com/post/624769573480169472/show-chapter-archive) It's Auguste and Laurent playing chess, so please check it out and cry about it with me.
> 
> Thank you for reading and for wishing me good luck! I passed all my exams <3 Next chapter will be up on Saturday/Sunday (I'll TRY to post it on Saturday, but it's unbelievable how much harder writing is when you actually HAVE TIME TO WRITE!). Love you all, please stay safe!!! xx


	21. Nineteen

**Nineteen**

The crop felt strange in Laurent’s right hand. His palm was clammy with sweat, a physical reaction he had not been expecting. In his recurring daydreams of this moment—Aimeric bound and on his knees, crying—Laurent was always calm and collected. There was no sweating or panting, no hesitation. But now, when it mattered the most, he had to keep his fingers clenched tightly around the handle to keep them from trembling.

“Speak,” Laurent said.

Aimeric’s lower lip was bruised and swelling rapidly, turning his pretty mouth into a gnarled mess. He spoke with a lisp. “I—didn’t—”

“When I said speak, I meant honestly.”

Aimeric tried again: “I didn’t—”

“Where’s the note?” Laurent asked. “Does Jord have it?”

At the mention of Jord, Aimeric narrowed his eyes. “No. There’s no note. I—”

Laurent caressed the right side of Aimeric’s face with the leather tip of the crop. Aimeric’s skin turned ashen, freckles startlingly brown for a second. Laurent gave Aimeric’s cheek a light pat, a barely-there warning.

It seemed the men had not been rough enough with Aimeric. He bit his swollen lip and turned his face away, granting Laurent full access to the right side of his face. _Strike me_ , he seemed to be saying. Laurent could not understand how his uncle had put up with him.

“I think Jord found something he was not supposed to. You tried to reason with him, tried to explain.” Laurent lowered the crop slightly. “And when that did not work, you got nervous. Too loud. The men heard you.”

A thread of blood was dribbling down Aimeric’s chin. He’d cut his lip open with his front teeth.

“You don’t have it on you,” Laurent said, “which can only mean Jord has it.”

“There is no note.”

“Or you disposed of it somehow.”

Aimeric faced him again, eyes on the crop. ”You can’t—because the King will punish—”

“The King?” Laurent pretended to think about it for a minute. “Which one?”

Firmly, Aimeric said, “There is no note.”

Laurent paused for a second. It was a possibility that the note did not exist, that this was Antoine’s plan to get revenge for his severed finger. Yet Laurent had a hard time believing someone like Antoine—a brutish bastard who could not even count how many fingers he had left—had been able to come up with such an elaborate plan. It was one thing to get Auguste’s men to roughen Aimeric up, but Jord was their captain. The punishment for mutiny was not just a pinky.

There was something in Laurent’s mind, trying to push to the front. A question.

“What did _he_ ask you to do?”

“Who? No one asked—” He coughed, a succession of wet sounds. At last, he managed, “No note.”

But Laurent simply ignored him. He’d made up his mind: Aimeric was lying. “He was obviously asking you to do something for him. Why would he risk sending you a note in the middle of the trial? He knows you’re surrounded by my brother’s guards.”

Aimeric shook his head once.

“Unless it’s an old note,” Laurent said. “Is that it? You kept one of his old notes with you. You read it every night before you crawled into your grimy bed like—”

“Like you did?” Aimeric asked.

Laurent tightened his hold on the crop. It’d be easy to strike now, even though Aimeric was expecting the blow. If anything, it’d be satisfying. And maybe Laurent would have done it—a flick of his wrist, quick and sharp, Aimeric’s open cheek—if it had not been for Damianos. He was outside, watching Jord. He would hear the whip and come running.

All this taunting was merely a show, Laurent knew. This was Aimeric’s best attempt at deflection. He kept pushing because he thought Laurent would give him the satisfaction of breaking, which meant he’d get away with this. If Laurent snapped, Auguste would never believe he had had reason to.

“Be that way, then.”

Laurent turned towards the entrance of the tent, making sure to take his time. If this did not work…

And then came Aimeric’s wheezing voice. “Where are you going?”

“Since you refuse to talk,” Laurent said, his back still turned to the little idiot, “I’ll simply tell Damianos to watch you while I have a conversation with Jord.”

“He—” Aimeric breathed in. “You won’t hurt him.”

That made Laurent stop walking. He said, “Why wouldn’t I? He has no deal with my brother. He’s not even highborn.” Laurent stood there, listening to Aimeric’s knees scrape the dirt as he crawled. “I’ll be merciful. You know how vicious Auguste can be with a whip, and when he returns and finds out that the man he’s trusted for years is a traitor… I’ll make it quick. Maybe.”

Something warm pressed against the back of his thigh. It was Aimeric’s bloodied forehead. “Please.”

Laurent smothered the urge to push Aimeric away. “Please what?”

“Please don’t,” Aimeric said through gritted teeth. “Your Highness.”

“Then start talking.”

They shifted. Aimeric sat on his haunches again, knees on the dirt, and Laurent stood looking down at him. Even before Aimeric began to speak, Laurent could tell there’d be no games between them this time, for Aimeric’s eyes kept darting towards the closed tent flaps as if looking for Jord.

“You said he has… a boy.”

_Nicaise._ “Yes.”

Aimeric lowered his eyes, staring at Laurent’s boots. His curls were so wild and thick they hid his expression away. “I told Jord.”

“You told him,” Laurent said, “about the boy?”

“No, I—” Another wheezed out a cough. Pathetic. “I told him about the letter.”

Laurent was beginning to lose his patience again. “Which letter?”

“The one I stole from—from the King.”

_Which King?_ Laurent had been about to ask. He bit down on his tongue hard and said instead, “My uncle asked you to steal a letter from Auguste. Which one?”

“I didn’t—” Aimeric stopped talking abruptly.

If he’d been coughing before, then now Aimeric sounded like he was trying to regurgitate one of his lungs. Or both of them. The spluttering went on for so long Laurent thought by the end of it Aimeric would be dead.

There was a jug of lukewarm water from the day before on the table. Laurent grabbed it with his left hand and shoved it in front of Aimeric’s face. This was the sort of thing a servant would do, and Laurent could not help but feel disgusted as he watched Aimeric struggle to sip the liquid.

When Aimeric’s coughing fit had passed, Laurent threw the jug away, water splattering the cloth walls of the tent, like blood after a slaughter.

“He didn’t tell me which one to take,” Aimeric said, and his voice was raspy and hoarse. The sound reminded Laurent of something unpleasant, a memory he did not want to think of. “He said… any would do.”

“You have never been allowed inside my brother’s study,” Laurent said. He could feel his heart beating faster at his own words, at his own conclusions. Damianos had said it was unlikely, but Damianos had been wrong before. He’d been so wrong. “Did you take it from his bedroom after you let him fuck you?”

A shameful blush spread over Aimeric’s cheeks. Laurent’s heart stopped.

And then, “No,” Aimeric said. “I—the messenger.”

Laurent closed his eyes. At least _this_ Auguste had done right. “You told Jord you had stolen a letter from the King and sent it to the south,” he said, opening his eyes enough to see Aimeric’s nod. “And what did Jord say to that confession?”

“He said I should tell His Majesty. He said I—” Aimeric swallowed, a dry sound. “He was going to turn me in.”

“He wasn’t.”

Green eyes on his, furious. “He was.”

“You’re lying,” Laurent said. Aimeric had always been stupidly easy to read: too angry, too fierce. It surprised Laurent that neither Jord nor Auguste had seen through his doe-eyed façade. “Jord was going to help you run. He knew what Auguste would do to you if he found out you had stolen from him.”

“The King can’t hurt me,” Aimeric argued. “He needs me too much.”

Laurent ignored him. “But Antoine said he heard you two fighting. Whom was Jord going to tell?”

“Jord is no traitor.”

_I would never betray the King._ “Was he planning on running away with you?” Laurent asked, watching Aimeric’s face closely. When the idiot angled it away to hide his expression, Laurent simply gave his hair a hard tug and lifted his chin. “Was Jord going to run away with you, yes or no?”

“No.”

“You disappoint me greatly. I thought that we had agreed to speak honestly.”

There was blood caked in Aimeric’s curls. His scalp was wet—more blood, probably—and fever-hot. Laurent simply yanked harder, feeling some strands of brittle hair break apart between his fingers.

“I—he didn’t—he wasn’t coming with—”

Laurent clicked his tongue once. “He was going to run away, but he knew he needed help to do so. Whom was he going to ask?” Silence. Another hard pull at Aimeric’s hair. _At this rate_ , Laurent thought, _you’ll go bald_. “Jord needed a horse, maybe two. Provisions, water. He needed someone to stay behind and make sure your absence was not discovered quickly.”

“No one.”

Laurent’s fingers stilled in Aimeric’s hair. Aimeric saw his chance and took it, moving away so Laurent would not abuse his scalp anymore. His ankle was not broken, for he was putting weight on it, and for a second Laurent was so disappointed about it he could not think of anything else.

“It was Lazar,” Laurent said, testing the words, hearing himself say them. “Jord and Lazar, my brother’s finest guards, were going to risk their lives trying to help you.”

Stubbornly, Aimeric clung to his side of the story. “No. Jord was going to tell the King, that’s—that’s why we were arguing.”

Laurent did not bother replying to that. He felt numb all over, and when he looked down at the crop it was hard to realize that it was his hand holding it still. It was a stupid, overdramatic reaction—histrionic, as Damianos was so fond of saying—but Laurent felt hurt spreading through his chest, filling in the spaces where joy had once been.

And it _was_ stupid, for Laurent had been betrayed before. Hadn’t his uncle left one morning without a note, without ever coming back for him? This should have felt like nothing compared to that, and yet it still hurt.

Jord had played games with him. Lazar too, when he wasn’t drunk or too busy fucking. For years, they had been Laurent’s only companions. He remembered Jord’s arms around him as he carried Laurent away from the arena, his impassive face as Laurent had thrown up all over him. He remembered the hours he’d spent with Lazar, learning new jokes and impolite ways to call another man. Laurent had thought they were—

“I have one last question for you,” Laurent said, carefully keeping his voice steady. This was not the time to let Aimeric know what affected him and what didn’t. “And then we’ll discuss what to tell my brother.”

The beating Aimeric had endured seemed to be catching up to him; he sagged forward as if the floor was pulling him in. His hands were still tied behind his back, which could not be comfortable, not after so much time had passed. Laurent considered untying him.

Instead, he said, “The tavern.”

Aimeric’s eyes had been closing. He opened them enough to look at Laurent’s face. “Which—”

“Did my uncle ask you to do that as well? To create problems and put my brother’s men against each other?”

Unsurprisingly, it took Aimeric a moment to answer. “No,” he said, voice thick. It sounded like he had something in his mouth, but before Laurent could ask him to open it Aimeric’s lips parted and blood started to drip onto the dirt floor. “No.”

The smell of hot iron was making Laurent’s stomach clench and unclench with disgust. “I don’t believe you.”

“They wanted me,” Aimeric said, as though it was the clearest statement in the world. It was becoming increasingly hard to understand him through the gurgling sounds he was making. “I thought it might be easier if they were—if they—I did not think the King would hurt him. I only wanted more time. I needed more time. I did not think—”

“You never think. That’s your problem. I’ve often wondered if there was anything at all inside your skull. Now I know there isn’t.”

Aimeric only sagged forward further in response.

Laurent held him upright by his hair, said, “More time?”

“—want to—” Another incoherent gurgle. “Testify.”

“You did not want to testify?” Laurent asked.

Aimeric’s head became heavier all of a sudden, a dead weight in Laurent’s hand. Without thinking twice about it, Laurent let go of Aimeric’s hair and watched him fall to the floor like a rag doll. He had passed out.

Laurent took a minute to steady his breathing. He let go of the crop, stepped over Aimeric’s limp body, and headed towards the closed tent flaps. There were hushed voices outside, something Laurent had not been expecting. He had left Jord gagged and told Damianos not to talk to him.

“Aimeric fell asleep,” Laurent announced, walking out of the tent.

Damianos was crouched down in front of Jord, who was talking in quick whispers. The gag hung from his neck like a ridiculous necklace. It seemed Damianos could not follow simple orders very well, but Laurent was unsurprised by this. Kings rarely knew how to obey.

Damianos stood. “There’s blood all over your hands.”

Laurent looked down and found that Damianos was telling the truth. His right hand—the one he’d fisted in Aimeric’s hair—was sticky and red.

“There’s blood all over _one_ of my hands,” Laurent said.

“Did you hurt him?” Jord’s voice. The sight of him made Laurent want to retch.

Laurent looked at Damianos again. His dark eyebrows were touching and the hinges of his jaw looked tense, and Laurent wanted to reach out and touch the worry away from his face. He couldn’t, and it wasn’t just because Jord was there, watching them.

“You need to help me drag him into Paschal’s tent.”

Damianos closed his eyes. “Laurent. You said you wouldn’t hurt him.”

“I didn’t,” Laurent said, ashamed of how wrong the slight scolding in Damianos’s tone was making him feel. He had every right to punish Aimeric if he wanted to. “The beating bore him down. He’s asleep.”

Damianos walked into the tent determinedly, and he did not question Laurent again, which was good. Laurent heard shuffling inside, a grunt. He kept his eyes to the sky, avoiding having to look at Jord for as long as he possibly could.

Finally, Damianos emerged from the tent, carrying Aimeric over his shoulder like he weighed less than a sack of flour. He was careful not to move around too brusquely and put a hand on Aimeric’s back to keep him from sliding to the ground.

“He’s unconscious,” Damianos said to Laurent. “Not asleep.”

Laurent studied his bloodied hand, trying to look innocent. Aimeric’s dirt had gotten under his fingernails. “Oh. Let us take him to Paschal then.” He turned to Jord, and added, “Get up and follow us.”

Jord was on his feet before Laurent had even finished talking. “Can I—”

Laurent cut him off by putting the gag back where it belonged. Jord did not even attempt to fight him, just stood there and let it happen.

“Has Auguste arrived yet?”

“Obviously not,” was Damianos’s dry response.

“Good,” Laurent said, only to receive another frown as a response. He felt the need to explain— _Auguste does not want me to be alone with Paschal_ —and stepped on it quickly before it could begin to spread. “Walk in front of us, Jord. That way we can keep an eye on you and make sure you don’t run away.”

Jord complied, his skin turning an even sicker shade of grey at Laurent’s words.

The walk to Paschal’s tent was silent. It seemed like Lazar had managed to get the men to go into their tents and abandon the common areas. Laurent would have thanked him, had Lazar not a traitor.

Paschal’s tent was much smaller than Laurent’s. It was on the west side of the camp, next to the one where the official royal physician slept. Laurent realized then just how innocently cruel Auguste could be sometimes and felt his sympathy for Paschal grow only stronger.

There was no door to knock on, and so Laurent did not bother with formalities. He simply sidestepped Jord and walked in, forcing Damianos to follow.

Paschal was sitting on a crooked chair, reading by the candlelight. He did not seem surprised to see them there, but Laurent knew it had been a while since Paschal had been open about how he was feeling. These days, the man was like a washed-out painting, his colors dull and uninviting.

Laurent kept his eyes on Paschal’s face, ignoring the dancing shadows around them.

Paschal closed the book he’d been reading and set it on the floor. There were no tables here, merely a worn down pallet with the thinnest blankets Laurent had ever seen. “I do not have any instruments.”

“There’s no need for them,” Laurent said. “You must have a needle in here. Aimeric has an open scalp. That will do.”

Paschal sighed. He looked a hundred years old. “Put him on the bed, Exalted.”

Damianos lowered Aimeric with such grace Laurent almost said something about it. He sat Aimeric down first and then cradled his head in one of his hands, guiding it towards the pillow. Then, he took off Aimeric’s boots and raised his legs onto the pallet as well.

Paschal moved closer to the bed, pushing Aimeric’s hair away from his face to examine the bruises and the swelling. He did so in silence, never once asking Laurent or Damianos any questions, not even looking up at Jord.

As Paschal gathered his rudimentary instruments, Laurent realized just how boring this would be. Paschal was a quiet man, but he was even quieter when he was busy working. There was no point in staying here to watch him stitch Aimeric back together.

“We should wait outside,” Damianos said as if reading Laurent’s mind. He sounded uncomfortable, and when Laurent looked at Aimeric again he realized why.

Paschal was cutting Aimeric’s shirt open. Soon, his pants would suffer the same fate.

“You can stay,” Laurent said to Jord, not bothering to look at him as he did. There was a silent knowledge in Laurent’s brain, something that told him that if he looked at Jord’s face or heard him speak things would not go well. And Laurent needed things to go well. “Cheer up, Jord. Heartbreak truly does not suit you.”

Damianos left the tent first, not bothering to look back and see if Laurent was following. _Kings,_ was Laurent’s only bitter thought. He stepped outside as well, forcing himself not to think of why Damianos’s attitude was annoying him more than Auguste’s ever had.

This part of the camp was in the shade, the sunlight blocked by the thick tree branches over their heads. It was a bleak place, and Laurent was not surprised that Auguste had had Paschal’s tent set up there.

Damianos was leaning against the thickest pine tree, watching Laurent walk towards him.

“Aimeric stole—”

“—a letter from Auguste,” Damianos said. Laurent listened for arrogance in his voice and could not find it. “I know.”

“Jord told you. In exchange for what?” Laurent paused, realizing a beat too late that he knew the answer already. “Little Aimeric’s safety.”

Damianos nodded once. His arms were crossed over his chest, preventing Laurent from getting as close as he had before by the fire. “He did not think Aimeric would talk.”

“He was wrong.”

“Did you use the crop?”

“You know I didn’t,” Laurent said. A twig snapped under his boot like a bone. “They’re all traitors.”

Damianos frowned. “They?”

Ah. Perhaps Jord had not told Damianos everything. “Aimeric, Jord, and Lazar.”

“Lazar?”

“There’s no need to sound so surprised,” Laurent said, unable to keep the disdain from his own voice. He too had been unpleasantly taken aback by the realization that he’d been sharing his meals with vipers. “I don’t believe he knew much about what was going on, but Jord must have asked him for help. He and Aimeric were going to run away together.”

“That’s not—” Damianos paused. Something flickered in his face. “Do you think Pallas knew?”

Laurent’s stomach twisted. He wondered how many knives one could sink into another person before they stopped being surprised by each new stab. “I don’t know.”

They were silent for a long time, listening to the murmurs coming from inside Paschal’s tent. The stream was too far away to be heard, yet Laurent strained his ears trying to find its sound anyways. Everything always seemed easier on the riverbank.

“You didn’t use the crop,” Damianos said slowly. He had uncrossed his arms. “You knew the men wanted you to, and you pretended to go along with it. But you knew it wasn’t right.”

Laurent had been about to agree and stopped. “Why wouldn’t it have been right? Aimeric confessed to his treason, he deserved to be punished.”

“Not by you.”

“If you think Auguste will be kind to him,” Laurent said, “then you don’t know my brother at all.”

Damianos frowned at the mention of Auguste. “I think your brother has brought his onto himself.”

Laurent stood there, watching him. He could not bring himself to say anything.

“He executed Aimeric’s father,” Damianos said. He took a step closer. “He forced Aimeric to stay in Arles instead of letting him return to the south with the rest of his family. He dragged the boy here without a reason.” A pause, a step. “How could he have been stupid enough to think Aimeric wouldn’t betray him?”

As calmly as he could, Laurent said, “Without a reason?”

“I know he’s brought Aimeric here to testify, but was it necessary? The note would have been proof enough.”

“What,” Laurent said, “are you talking about?”

Damianos frowned. “Aimeric is here to confess to having delivered your uncle’s note to Kastor.”

Laurent took a step forward, putting an end to their distance. “Congratulations. Your deduction skills are lacking now more than ever.” He shoved Damianos hard, using both hands, only managing to make him stumble backward the slightest bit. “I suggest you never call my brother stupid again, given how _you_ are the King of Stu—”

The sound of horses and men approaching cut him off. Auguste had returned.

Damianos reacted first. “We need to tell him what happened.”

“No.”

“Laurent, I wasn’t asking you.”

“He won’t hurt Aimeric,” Laurent said. _He needs me too much_ , Aimeric had said. And he’d been right. “But he’ll want to make examples out of Jord and Lazar.”

Damianos touched him, his calloused hand on the side of Laurent’s neck. “I thought you said Jord and Lazar could fend for themselves.”

“ _In a war_ , not against my brother.”

“I don’t understand why you—” Damianos broke off. Some voices were growing louder. His grip on Laurent only tightened. “Why would you help them like this?”

Laurent didn’t want to help them. In fact, he had been thinking of nothing but other ways to make their lives miserable. The crop had felt heavy and strange in his hand, but there were other punishments Laurent knew he enjoyed delivering.

“It’s not about them,” Laurent said. “It’s about Auguste. He needs to be strong if he wants to win this. He needs—support.”

But Damianos was not convinced. “We cannot keep this from him. He’ll find out eventually.”

“‘Eventually’ is not a problem we need to be worrying about now.”

“Laurent.”

“We’ll only tell him about the letter Aimeric stole,” Laurent said firmly. “We’ll tell him that Jord was going to report Aimeric, but Antoine and his lackeys misinterpreted the conversation. Aimeric will corroborate it.”

“Laurent,” Damianos said again. It sounded like a plea. “I can’t do this to him. I’ve already—” He stopped. Laurent could not even begin to guess what he’d been about to say. “I can’t.”

Laurent moved away, forcing Damianos’s hand to leave his neck. He straightened, wiped the drying blood of his hand on his white shirt, and said, “Then I’ll do it.”

“He deserves to know the truth.”

“What men deserve is rarely what they get,” Laurent said. There was no time left, for he could see one of Auguste’s guards approaching through the camp and in their direction. He needed to make this very clear to Damianos. “How do you think he’ll feel when he finds out everyone he has ever cared about has betrayed him?”

“Not everyone,” Damianos said quietly. “Not you.”

“You don’t know anything.”

The first of the guards reached them. He was one of Lord Jasque’s men, tall and broad across the shoulders. Laurent did not know his name.

“Your Highness, the King is looking for you.”

“I’ll go with you,” Damianos said, trying to keep his voice low.

“No,” Laurent said. “You’ll stay here and make sure Jord looks presentable. Remove the gag, tell Paschal to check him for injuries, and explain to him what the official version of this mess will be.” He turned away. To the guard, he said, “I don’t need you to escort me to my brother’s tent. I know the way.”

The man blinked a couple of times. “He’s not in his tent, Your Highness. He’s in yours.”

Laurent closed his eyes. That was exactly what he’d been trying to avoid: Auguste seeing the mess Aimeric had left behind. All that blood, the crop, the broken pitcher. Laurent could almost feel Auguste’s thundering anger from here.

He opened his eyes when he felt Damianos’s hand on his shoulder, squeezing.

“I’ll handle Jord,” Damianos said. And then, almost hesitantly, “Do not upset him.”

Laurent wanted to laugh. If only it was that simple.

*

Laurent steadied his breathing and his hands as he walked inside. He told himself he was prepared for the worst—in his head, the worst thing would be a public, physical punishment—and was stunned into absolute stillness when Auguste latched on to him, his hands everywhere at once.

“Are you hurt?” Auguste pulled away for a second, pressing trembling fingers to the bloodstain on the front of Laurent’s shirt. “I saw the crop and the blood and I thought—someone said the men had... I thought—” He broke off, holding Laurent tight against him again.

Laurent could not open his mouth to reply. He closed his eyes and pressed his face into Auguste’s shoulder, letting shame wash over him in waves. Before his brain could give his muscles the order to stop, Laurent’s hands were fisting the back of Auguste’s shirt, trying to pull him even closer.

Even with all the sharp lies between them, sinking into them both like shards of glass, Laurent did not want to pull away.

Auguste’s hand was cold on the nape of his neck, as though he’d spent the last hour with his fingers deep in the snow. Laurent could only shudder.

“Are you hurt?” Auguste asked again. “Is your hand all right?”

_It’s Aimeric’s blood_ , Laurent imagined himself saying. But he could not do it, for he knew what would happen if he did. Auguste would withdraw. How many seconds had passed? Laurent had been too excited to count them.

“Laurent?”

“I’m not hurt.”

Auguste held him tight for another second, then tighter, but Laurent could not feel happy about it because he knew it meant Auguste was about to let go. It lasted a second too long, for Laurent’s hands were still clutching Auguste’s shirt, but then it was over. Auguste moved away, setting his hands on Laurent’s shoulders to prevent him from leaning in again. Soon those hands would be gone as well.

“Aimeric stole a letter from you,” Laurent said. He needed the advantages of having the first word. “He was—”

But Auguste was already shaking his head, hands dropping from Laurent’s shoulders. “Not this again.”

The dismissal hurt more than Laurent had been expecting. “He told me about it. He said Uncle had asked him to steal a letter from you and I think I know which letter it was.”

Auguste picked up the crop from the table to his right. In his hand, the rigid whip did not look out of place or awkward. It looked like he’d used it before, as Laurent knew he had. Like it belonged there.

“Did you use this on him? To make him tell you?”

“No,” Laurent snapped. He was tired of being asked the same question over and over again. Aimeric being flogged was the least of their problems, and yet it seemed like he was the only one who saw that. “You’re not listening to me.”

Auguste touched the tip of the crop with his fingers. They came away red. “Whose blood is this?” And then, when Laurent did not answer, he said, “The least you could do is be honest.”

“The least you could do is listen to me when I talk.”

“Is this Aimeric’s blood?”

“Yes,” Laurent said, “but I—”

“Where is he?” Auguste’s face was blank and white and awful. _He thinks I’ve killed Aimeric_ , Laurent realized. It was written all over his features. “Laurent, he was my—how could you have been so stupid?”

Laurent did not correct him. It felt like the most futile of efforts. “He was your _what_?” he said. “Catamite? Is that the word you were looking for?”

“Where is he?”

“Pet?” Laurent pushed. He heard Damianos’s warning in his head and ignored it. “Lover?”

Auguste threw the crop across the tent. A hissing sound parted the air and their silence for a second. “Stop playing games, Laurent. I swear if you don’t tell me what—”

“Or is it camp follower? That one seems fitting.” Laurent tilted his head to the side, muscles reacting before his brain could register why. In case Auguste grew bold enough to strike him across the face again. “He stole from you. Did he not deserve to be punished?”

Auguste laughed. It hurt, for Laurent knew whom he was laughing at. “He told you he stole a letter after how many whips? A boy under the lash will say anything to get you to stop.”

“He’s not a boy.”

“Which letter did he steal?”

“Uncle said any would do, but I think—”

“When one steals a letter,” Auguste said mockingly, “it’s because of its content. Or do you reckon Uncle simply wanted to admire my signature?” He rubbed at his face with both hands, messing up his beard. “I haven’t written anything that could be considered compromising in years. Uncle knows that.”

Laurent stared at him. “Are you calling me a liar?”

Auguste met his gaze, blue-eyed fury and contempt. “I’m calling you a fool.”

“Aimeric is fine,” Laurent said steadily, hearing his own voice as if from outside the tent. “He’s with Paschal, getting his scalp stitched back together. Your guards hit him.”

“But there was blood—”

“It was a mutiny. I made them drag Jord and Aimeric here to make it seem as though I was going to punish them.” After a pause, Laurent added, “I did not. I touched Aimeric’s cheek with the crop and the blood must have transferred.”

Of course, to all of that Auguste only said, “Jord?”

“Antoine heard the two of them talking and thought Jord was a traitor as well.”

“That’s—” Auguste frowned. “I want to see him.”

“He’s with Paschal,” Laurent repeated.

“I meant Jord.”

“He’s with Paschal too.” Laurent sidestepped Auguste and bent over to pick up the pitcher off the floor. He set it on the table. “Ask Damianos, he was there when this happened. I have no doubt you trust his word.” _Over mine_ , he thought but did not say it. Instead, he walked over to where the crop lay and picked it up as well. “Take this away, lest I use it on an innocent boy again.”

“Laurent,” Auguste started, and stopped. He did not seem to know what to say. “I…”

Laurent went to grab his hairbrush, only to remember he’d left it in Damianos’s tent. “You must be right about Aimeric,” he said when he noticed Auguste was still standing there, looking at him. “After all, you have always been extremely perceptive when it comes to other people’s hidden motives. It’s not as though you have been wrong before.”

Auguste looked like Laurent had hit him with the crop. The list of his mistakes was long—Guion, Orlant, Victoire—but Laurent knew whom he was thinking of. Uncle would always be Auguste’s biggest regret.

Years ago, Auguste would have apologized. Maybe Laurent would have, too. But now more than ever it was clear to Laurent that something had severed between them, something that could not be stitched back together. When Auguste retreated, Laurent made no attempt to follow.

It was better like this, Laurent knew. This was the fight they both had been dancing around for months. Now that it was done there was nothing but relief. After this, Laurent’s cold distance would not be questioned.

There had to be others like Aimeric in this camp. They would tell Uncle how Laurent was being treated.

All Laurent had to do was wait.

*

Damianos sat on his pallet, balancing a wooden bowl on one of his thighs and a book on the other. He looked up when he heard Laurent walk in. His smile was small, but it was more than Laurent had been expecting from him. After all, he _had_ shoved Damianos against a tree hours earlier.

There was only one lit oil lamp by the bed. It had been arranged so that the light was dim and the shadows did not reach the walls of the tent.

“Broth?” Laurent moved closer. There was no steam, but the liquid inside the bowl was not plain water. “I did not think you liked it.”

Damianos only smiled wider. “I don’t.”

“It’s gone cold,” Laurent said, sitting down on the pallet without waiting for an invitation to do so.

“It’s lukewarm and it’s not for me. You did not eat dinner.”

Laurent stared at him.

Carefully, Damianos handed the bowl to Laurent. There were pieces of meat in the soup, for a change. Their fingers brushed over the wood for a second before Damianos pulled away once he was sure Laurent’s grip was firm.

“Were you reading or just looking at the pictures?” Laurent asked, lifting the bowl to his mouth. It was cold.

Damianos did not bother reminding him there were no illustrations in that book. Instead, he lowered his gaze to the page and said in Akielon, “ _Isthima has its own dialect that is different to the Akielon language but, largely because of its long poetic tradition, an accent from Isthima is not considered provincial_.” He looked at Laurent’s face again. “Try to say that word.”

Laurent sipped the broth. “Which one?”

“Provincial.”

“Provincial,” Laurent said and frowned when Damianos’s smile widened. “I’m saying it correctly.”

Damianos cocked his head. “Are you? Try again.”

“Provin—stop laughing at me.”

“I’m not laughing at you,” Damianos said, biting his lip to stifle his laughter. “How’s your broth?”

“Cold,” Laurent said. “You’re a terrible teacher.”

“You’ve told me that before.”

“It’s the truth. Aesop always said I spoke Akielon better than you.”

Damianos laughed hard, a bubbly sound that filled the tent. Laurent wanted to lean into it. "Do not take offense in what I am about to tell you,” he said, “but you were lied to. Repeatedly, it seems like.”

For the next couple of minutes, neither of them spoke. Laurent focused on eating while Damianos pretended not to watch him, flipping through the pages of Laurent’s book with careful hands.

When Laurent was done, he put the bowl down on the floor and started unlacing his boots. Damianos did not question him, and so Laurent did not explain. This part was always easy. As he pushed his boots under the pallet, Laurent’s fingers brushed against something cold. It was a metal handle, although Laurent had no way of knowing if it was the dagger or the brush.

Picking it up, Laurent saw it was the brush. He set it on the pallet. _Later_ , he thought. That part was never easy.

“You upset him,” Damianos said. It was not a question. “What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about my brother.”

“I know, but we have to.” Damianos closed the book on his lap and set it next to the brush. “I lied to him because you asked me to.”

Laurent pressed the tips of his fingers against Damianos’s knee. The bones under his skin felt solid, unbreakable. Laurent traced the outline of them, faintly aware of Damianos’s unusual stiffness, and focused on that for a while.

“He didn’t believe me,” Laurent said. He’d been expecting the words to sound as hurtful as they had felt, but instead, they were just words. His thumb brushed over the center of Damianos’s knee where a small scar interrupted the smooth skin. “About Aimeric and the letter, I mean. Auguste thought I had hurt him into talking.”

“Did you tell him you hadn’t?”

“Yes.” Another scar, this one smaller. Laurent traced it with his finger. “He believed _you_ , obviously.”

Damianos did not say anything to that, but Laurent did not need him to. It hurt, but not as much as it had before, back in his own tent with Auguste standing in front of him. Things never hurt as much in memory.

“Come here.”

Laurent retrieved his hand. “Here?”

“Your hair is a mess.”

It wasn’t. Laurent knew this because his braid was tightly done, not a single lock escaping the golden clip he had put on this morning. Instead of pointing that out, he shifted on the bed as Damianos picked up the silver hairbrush. This was how they had sat on the riverbank the other day, cross-legged and close.

It felt different on a bed.

Damianos’s fingers took their time unclasping the pin. The braid did not come undone on its own, for Laurent had plaited his hair after washing himself, hair still wet. Damianos started from the bottom, as one would with Veretian laces. Not once did he ask Laurent for instructions or help.

Laurent braced himself for the pain—the first tug always hurt—but it never came. Damianos made sure to brush the ends of Laurent’s hair first, to get rid of the knots, and the comb never caught or tangled.

“I was…” Laurent trailed off when Damianos started brushing from the top. The teeth of the comb tickled his scalp. “I was going to ask you.” A pause. What had Laurent been trying to say? “To do this.”

“I know,” Damianos said. Laurent could hear the smile in his voice. “You’re not as hard to read as you think you are.”

The soft tugging was making Laurent want to close his eyes. He was holding himself straight, his shoulders pushed back in perfect posture, but it was becoming harder to remember why he couldn’t simply lay down. He wanted to go to sleep.

“—another braid?”

Laurent’s eyes snapped open. He did not remember closing them. “I—what?”

He felt Damianos’s laugh against his neck. “Do you want me to braid your hair again or do you want to wear it loose?”

“I want a braid,” Laurent said hastily. He did not want Damianos’s hands to go away yet. When a moment had passed and Damianos had not moved, Laurent turned his head to watch him. “What is it?”

“Your scalp is red,” Damianos said. His fingers touched the back of Laurent’s head, right over the nape of his neck. “You should wear it down tonight.”

Laurent tried to argue. “But I—” Damianos’s thumb on his pierced lobe, tracing the shell of his ear. “I want—”

“A braid, I know.”

_No_ , Laurent thought desperately. _That’s not what I want._ “Yes,” he said but shifted on the bed so he could face Damianos, taking away any chance of hair-braiding from him.

Damianos looked amused. “What are you doing?”

Laurent did not reply. He did not know what he was doing, or what he wanted to do, or why it felt like his heart would burst at any second. Could Damianos hear it, bouncing against Laurent’s ribcage as if trying to escape?

“Stay still,” Laurent said. He watched as Damianos bit back a laugh.

“Is there something on my face?”

Laurent touched Damianos’s chin first. The skin was pulsing hot under his fingers and it only grew warmer the closer Laurent got to Damianos’s cheeks. Was he blushing? It was hard to tell given the dark color of his skin, but the heat underneath Laurent’s fingers felt like a clue.

When Laurent pressed a thumb to the right corner of Damianos’s mouth, a dimple appeared. Laurent touched it too.

“You have a stubble.”

Damianos smiled against Laurent’s hand. “I woke up late this morning,” he said, his voice strained. “There was no time to shave.”

“Where are your blade and your oils?”

“Under the bed. What are you—”

“Stay still,” Laurent chided, and surprisingly Damianos obeyed.

There was a small trunk under the pallet, similar to the one under his own bed. Laurent found the blade easily enough and then focused on spotting the oil. He did not know how men shaved in Akielos, but how different from what Auguste had taught him could it be? His fingers found a rough towel in the trunk as well, stiff and new. He put it on the pallet and set the blade and the vial of oil on top.

Laurent found a pitcher on a stool next to the bed and was relieved to see there was water in it instead of wine.

“Have you done this before?” Damianos asked when Laurent sat down again.

“I haven’t,” Laurent said.

Laurent picked up the oil, poured some on his palm and rubbed his hands together to warm it up. It was not scented, probably to avoid irritating the skin, and Laurent took his time spreading it over Damianos’s face, marveling at how his skin glistened in the dim light.

After wiping his hands on the towel, Laurent picked up the blade.

Damianos slightly tilted his head to the side. He did not flinch when the cold metal touched his skin, right below his cheekbone.

“I tried to grow a full beard for my coronation,” Damianos said, watching Laurent wipe the blade on the towel. He presented his other cheek. “It looked hideous.”

Laurent willed his fingers not to tremble. Another clean stroke. “I do not doubt it. Didn’t Nikandros try to stop you?”

“He encouraged me, actually. He said…”

“He said…?”

Damianos let Laurent lift his chin. His voice was calm when he spoke again like having a Veretian holding a sharp blade to his throat was nothing to worry about. “Women like that sort of thing.”

Laurent held the blade tighter, said, “Women?”

“I told you he’s been pestering me to get married for years. When I was crowned, all the kyroi brought their daughters with them to the ceremony. Nikandros was convinced that the beard would…” Damianos stopped talking. He gently pushed Laurent’s hand away. “What’s wrong?”

Blinking, Laurent said, “Nothing.”

“You weren’t moving.”

“Oh.” Laurent inspected Damianos’s neck. He’d only shaven half of it. “Beards are… They are popular in Patras.”

Damianos stilled under Laurent’s hands. “I did not know you cared about Patran fashion.”

“I don’t. It’s just something Auguste always says.” Laurent wiped the blade on the towel. There was no blood, not bad for the first time.

“Is it done?” Damianos asked.

Instead of replying, Laurent handed him the pitcher so he could wash his face. When that was done, he dumped the towel on the floor and set the blade and the oil on the stool, along with the jug Damianos handed to him once he was finished using it.

There was water dripping down Damianos’s chin. Instinctively, Laurent used his thumb to wipe the drops away. He dragged it across Damianos’s cheek, feeling for any spots he might have missed, and found none. Damianos’s skin was smooth and cold, slightly wet, but there were no hairs anywhere.

Laurent did not remove his hand, not even when Damianos shot him a questioning look. He moved it away from Damianos’s cheek and into his hair, curling his finger around a bouncing brown lock.

Damianos leaned into the touch.

“Has anyone ever braided your hair?”

“No,” Damianos said. “It’s too short.”

Laurent frowned. “It’s not too short.” He raised his other hand and selected another two locks. Damianos’s hair was not as fine as his, but it still felt soft as he twisted it. “There.”

They had shifted closer without Laurent noticing. Damianos put his hand over Laurent’s where the small plait was, tracing it with his fingers. His other hand was a ghost on Laurent’s cheek, the pads of his fingers touching the side of Laurent’s throat, and there was simply no way he could not feel Laurent’s rabbit-like pulse under them.

“Laurent,” Damianos said. It sounded like a warning.

Laurent leaned forward, pressed his face against Damianos’s shoulder, and closed his eyes. They sat like that for so long Laurent’s back began to ache, a silent pain that crept up his spine and settled on his shoulders. After a while, he felt Damianos shift as he lay down on the bed, pulling Laurent down with him.

“Don’t sleep on the floor tonight,” Laurent said into Damianos’s collarbone. He was not past the point of making up excuses yet. “Your back will hurt.”

“I’ll stretch.”

Laurent was about to protest again when Damianos started carding his fingers through Laurent’s hair. They had done this before by the stream, but the bed offered a different set of comforts and soon Laurent found himself curling closer and closer around Damianos. It was hard to remember what they had been arguing about or why this should have felt humiliating. It was hard to remember a lot of things with Damianos around.

“Go to sleep,” Damianos said.

“Shut up,” Laurent said, and yawned. “Tell me a joke.”

“Why should I? You never find them funny.”

_It’s your voice that I like hearing_ , Laurent thought. Instead, “Because I asked politely.”

“Politely?” Damianos’s laughter. They both shook with it. “Are you sure you know the meaning of that word?”

Laurent pressed closer. “I’m always polite.”

“I can count on one hand the number of times you have said _please_ and _thank you_ in your life.”

“You have big hands,” Laurent said, just for the sake of arguing. His fingers found Damianos’s. He touched the knuckles, the lines of his palms, the small scar on his index finger. “One finger is six thank yous.”

Damianos laughed again, this time more quietly. “I don’t think that’s how it works,” he said, twisting his hand to allow Laurent to touch the inside of his wrist as well. “And my hands aren’t big, yours are just small.”

Laurent pressed his hand against Damianos’s, comparing them. “They’re even bigger than your head.”

Laurent’s fingers moved on their own, flexing to fit into the spaces between Damianos’s. After a second, Damianos closed his hand as well. This they had never done before.

“You should sleep,” Damianos said. As a response, Laurent pursed his mouth against the skin of Damianos’s shoulder, making him laugh again. “What is it now?”

“Tell me a joke.”

“Will you go to sleep if I do?”

Laurent closed his eyes. He squeezed Damianos’s hand and shifted so that his cheek was on Damianos’s chest, on the soft fabric of his chiton. He nodded against it.

“There was a man,” Damianos said, his fingertips tickling Laurent’s scalp. “He was famous for the horses he bred.”

Laurent tried to stay awake to hear the punchline, but he was too tired. He thought of the crop and how it had felt in his hand. Involuntarily, his fingers twitched. Damianos held them tighter in his, thumb brushing again and again over one of Laurent’s knuckles.

“—into the stables,” Damianos was saying. “The horse kicked the door and the lady said she—”

Laurent let go after that.

*

The tent was completely dark when Laurent woke up. The wind was beating viciously against the walls of cloth around him as if trying to get inside, but Laurent was too tired to worry about it.

The right side of the pallet was empty, except for the pillow Laurent had been pressing into in his sleep. Damianos was on the floor, sleeping on his side and facing away from Laurent.

*

In the morning, Laurent slipped out of the tent while Damianos was still asleep. It was quiet outside, but not in a way that would have signaled trouble. Some guards were gathered by the wine barrels, and when Laurent saw that one of them was Lazar he decides to go the other way. That wound still felt too raw.

He was walking towards the fruit crates when he realized he’d never been to this part of the camp. It was where the Lords’ tents were and, a few miles ahead, where the pets slept. Laurent started making his way towards that particular tent—the one no one was allowed into except for Auguste and the Lords—but stopped when he looked around and saw how many men were guarding the place.

He stood there for another moment, wondering what his brother would say if he asked for a pet of his own. Auguste couldn’t refuse, for it would make him look bad, yet he would not be happy about it. He’d make sure to hide all the crops, all the sharp knives. Maybe he’d even give the pet permission to fight back.

A thought flashed through his mind. Had Damianos lain with any of them?

As he made his way to the food crates, Laurent tried not to think of the possible answers to that question. In a wooden bowl, he put the darkest berries he could find amongst the other fruits. _Six_ , Laurent counted in his head as his fingers moved from the crate to the bowl, _seven, eight, nine_. He’d slept in Damianos’s tent the last two nights, surely he would have noticed if a pet had—

_Ten_ , Laurent thought irritably, _eleven, twelve._

And even if Damianos had lain with them, what did it matter to Laurent? What did it matter if he—

_Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen._ Laurent crushed the sixteenth berry with his fingers, watching its dark red juice drip to the ground.

It did not matter, Laurent decided as he made his way back into Damianos’s tent. Damianos was a King, and he could do as he pleased with anyone of his choosing. He could order all thirty-one pets to crawl into his bed and please him. He could do whatever he wanted.

Inside, Damianos was just starting to wake up. He sat up on the floor when he saw Laurent, a smile already turning his face soft.

Laurent shoved the fruit bowl in his limp hands without a word and went outside again, trying very hard not to scream.

*

The ride to the castle was quick and silent. Laurent kept his eyes on the path and did not turn to look at Damianos even once. He considered this a victory of sorts.

When the green of the forest gave way to the fiery red of his uncle’s banners, Laurent lowered his eyes to his mare. He touched on of the braids in her hair, the one he’d plaited back in the stables of Chastillon with trembling fingers.

By the time he looked back up, they had already crossed the gates and were riding into the courtyard. This was the most boring part because it was always the same, day in and day out. The herald would be there waiting, he’d talk to Auguste, the Lords would—

Laurent pulled at his reins so hard his mare cried out.

Ahead, standing on the marble steps, there was no herald. It was his uncle, waiting for them.

Auguste went very still in his saddle, his posture changing instantly. It became clear he had not been expecting this either, and when he swung off his horse Laurent was glad the Lords had recommended Auguste did not bring a sword to the trial. _It’s about appearances_ , Lord Guillaume had said, stupidly trying to make it seem as though no one was worried about Auguste’s temper.

There were no guards around their uncle, no courtiers. He had come out here to publicly welcome them, alone and unarmed, not even wearing a crown. He had ambushed them.

Laurent smiled.

Auguste stood right in front of their uncle, saying something Laurent could not hear. There were too many bodies between them, too much distance, but Laurent did not need to hear the words to know Auguste was not happy.

Their uncle kept his eyes on Auguste’s face. His mouth curled into a reply, but Auguste soon cut him off again. It was not until the Lords had dismounted and approached them that Auguste turned around to look at Laurent.

_Don’t_ , Auguste’s eyes said. He’d gotten better at keeping his emotions off his face, but his eyes always gave them away.

Laurent dismounted.

Damianos was by his side within seconds, holding him in place by the elbow. “I don’t think Auguste wants you to be here today.”

“I know he doesn’t,” Laurent said, “but I know someone who does.”

When Laurent managed to free his arm from Damianos’s grip, Damianos did not try to grab him again. They could not afford to make a scene, not here with all these people watching. Laurent kept thinking about Lord Guillaume’s words as he sidestepped Auguste’s guards and their horses, each word echoing inside his skull as though someone was hammering them into it. He felt Damianos’s presence behind him, following Laurent so closely he might as well have been his shadow.

Auguste stepped in front of Laurent, blocking the way. He had walked away from the Lords and their uncle to stop Laurent from coming closer.

“If you turn around now and leave,” Auguste said, “I won’t punish you.”

Laurent tilted his head. “Punish me?”

“You swore you would not do this, Laurent. You promised me.”

“Did I?” Laurent asked, scrunching up his face. It got the desired reaction out of Auguste, who looked like he was contemplating laying hands on Laurent again. “I must have been lying.”

“It’s too late for him to leave,” Damianos said, putting his hand on Auguste’s shoulder. “People are watching. It would look like you—” He paused when Auguste shook off his hand. “Auguste, be reasonable.”

Auguste’s eyes were on Laurent. “Don’t—”

“—talk to him?” Laurent supplied. “Greet him? That’d be awfully rude of me, don’t you think?”

“Laurent,” Damianos said.

Laurent ignored him. “We should go now, brother. You know how much Uncle hates to be kept waiting.”

Something ugly flickered in Auguste’s expression. Laurent knew he would pay for this later, maybe under the lash, but he could not bring himself to care. It felt as though every petty fight they’d had over the past four years had been leading up to this moment, and Laurent was certain that if Damianos had not been standing there between them, Auguste would have hit him.

After what felt like an eternity, Auguste turned around and headed towards the marble steps where the Lords and their uncle stood waiting. He did not glance back at Laurent once, and Laurent told himself it was better like this.

Damianos’s hand brushed against his. For a moment, Laurent thought of what it’d be like to hold it—here, in front of all these strangers, under the sun. But then that moment was gone, both of them walking forward and following Auguste out of the courtyard.

When they had reached the small party of men, Damianos stepped in front of Laurent, blocking not only the way but also the view. There was nothing to look at but Damianos’s broad back, barely hidden under his skimpy chiton.

A deep, calm voice: “You must be King Damianos.”

There was a slight pause, during which Damianos shifted. One of his arms moved forward, and it took Laurent a second to understand that they were shaking hands.

Laurent stood on his tiptoes to look over Damianos’s shoulder and was rewarded with a set of blue eyes staring right back at him. He smiled, showing no teeth, and ducked his head. It was strange to see how much of this routine his muscles remembered, how easy it was to fall back into it. Perhaps he’d even be able to consciously summon a blush, for old times’ sake.

Damianos moved; there was no reason why he should stand between them anymore.

Uncle said, “Laurent.”

This was not how they were supposed to greet each other. A message, then. To both of his nephews.

“Uncle,” Laurent said, still smiling. He dared not say another word, for he knew the man hated blabber.

“Let us start with this,” Auguste said from somewhere. Laurent could not tell where he was standing anymore, he was too busy looking at someone else. “Or shall we spend the rest of the day gathered here talking?”

Everyone started moving forward then, Auguste and their uncle at the head. The hall they walked into was similar to the one Nicaise had been hiding in, but also darker, the stone not white or grey but black. Had it not been for the torches lighting the way, Laurent was certain more than one of the Lords would have tripped.

Laurent ignored the flames and the shadows as he walked. He kept the smile on his face, sweet and pious, and forced himself not to react to the questioning looks Damianos kept sending his way. Damianos noticed too much, sometimes.

The room at the end of the hall was bigger than the throne room in Arles. It had no windows, which meant no natural light came through. After a few hours cooped up in there, it’d be hard to know what time it was and whether the sun had set or not.

There were six chairs on the right side of the room, all of them made of dark wood and red tapestry. The rest of the room was like the dining hall back home: tables, chairs, benches. Laurent wondered if this had been a ballroom, once.

The southern Lords were already seated, watching them from their highchairs. Auguste’s Lords walked in a straight line and sat on the three empty chairs, and soon joined their peers in the staring contest. Even Lord Guillaume’s eyes looked accusing from up there.

Their uncle had only one other person by his side. It was Govart, the guard that had pushed Nicaise around in the gardens. He was standing against the wall, chewing something. When his eyes found Laurent’s, his mouth curled into a grin, the sort that showed uneven teeth and dark gums.

Auguste sat facing the Lords, his back to Laurent and Damianos. A second later, their uncle sat down as well, crossing one leg over the other and placing his clasped hands over one knee. In order to look at Laurent, he would have to crane his neck, but it was not entirely impossible that he would turn and—

Damianos’s hand on his elbow silenced Laurent’s thoughts. They sat down behind Auguste, and Laurent made sure to move his chair slightly away from Damianos’s as soon as he could. He felt rather than saw Damianos’s surprise and shrugged it off as best as he could. There were bigger things to worry about now.

“Kings,” Lord Touars said awkwardly. It must have taken him a while to decide how to address the men before him. “Come forward and take the final oath.”

The Kings did. They stood at the same time and walked to the Lords’ table, not looking at each other. Even from where he was sitting, Laurent could hear Auguste cracking his knuckles.

Formal words in rusty, stiff Veretian were exchanged. _And I swear by my lineage and my blood… the truth… to honor this trial…_ Laurent leaned forward in his seat when the final part began, wondering if Auguste would do as he was supposed to.

Their uncle turned to face Auguste, his hand already outstretched. The thick band of his golden ring caught Laurent’s eye. Had he been wearing it that last night?

“I swear it,” their uncle said.

Auguste took his hand. There was nothing soft or cordial about the shake he gave it. “I swear it.”

Laurent sneaked a glance at Damianos’s face. He was watching the scene unfold with a furrowed brow, his dimple nowhere to be seen.

“Shall we toss a coin?” Lord Guillaume asked. He seemed stupidly excited, which did not surprise Laurent in the slightest. He was as bright as an unpolished rock. “To see who’ll begin.”

Lord Jehan pulled a face. “King Auguste is a guest in the south,” he said, quoting someone. “As such, he should go first.”

“A guest,” Auguste said, “in my own kingdom?”

Lord Peire produced something shiny from his breast pocket. “A coin,” he said. “This will settle the matter. I’ll throw it and—”

“But how do we know it’s not a trick?” Lord Rolant interrupted. He had a face like a boar’s. “The coin could be fake.”

Indignant, Lord Peire shoved the coin into the southerner’s face. “Fake? There is nothing fake about my gold.”

“Enough,” their uncle said, and the Lords fell quiet. Then, turning to Auguste, “Nephew, be reasonable. You are a guest here.”

_Nephew_.

“Very well then,” Auguste said. “Let us start with the charges against you.”

“Those charges are ridiculous.”

“And the ones against me aren’t?”

“You have come here to defend yourself, not to push the blame around like a boy.”

“Like a boy,” Auguste said in a horrible voice. After a moment, he added, “Treason. That’s the first charge I’d like to discuss today.”

Their uncle shook his head in open disappointment. The gesture felt like a stab to Laurent’s stomach even though it was not directed at him. “As you wish, nephew.”

Laurent watched him cross the room and sit down again, leaving Auguste alone in front of the Lords without another word. His eyes found Laurent’s for a split-second and they both smiled and Laurent’s stomach—

“My uncle has betrayed his family,” Auguste said. “He has conspired against me from the moment the war with Akielos ended. The summer that followed the signing of the peace treaty at Marlas, he had one of his men attack me with a spear and framed a member of the King’s Guard for it.”

“And what proof do you have of this?” Lord Touars asked.

Auguste tugged at the front laces of his shirt and pulled at the neckline to reveal a patch of uneven, marred skin. “I bear this scar as proof.”

Lord Jasque leaned forward to get a better look. He said, “Where is the wrongly accused man? Have you brought him as a witness?”

_Truth and honor shall prevail_ , Laurent thought. Had their uncle not been in the room, Laurent would have snorted.

“He was murdered,” Auguste said, “by my uncle’s men as he awaited trial in his cell. They forced poison down his throat and claimed he had taken his own life.”

Lord Rolant’s question came next: “Why would your uncle do such a thing?”

“By killing me he’d gain power and a throne. Is there a better reason than that? No one else would benefit more from my murder than him.”

“Except for your brother,” Lord Jehan said carefully. He must have known what it meant to point fingers at Laurent in Auguste’s presence. “How do you know it was not him behind the attack? With you dead and buried, he’d be the Crown Prince.”

In a flat and bored voice, Auguste said, “Laurent was thirteen years old.”

“It is unlikely that a boy so young would plot his own brother’s murder,” Lord Peire commented. There were nods in agreement, even from the south. “And your uncle would have held the throne for many years until the Prince was of age to rule, had you been killed. It is only natural to assume—”

“Assumptions are not facts,” Lord Touars said.

Lord Peire sniffed. “I know the difference between the two.”

“It certainly seems like you don’t.”

“Over the course of the last four years,” Auguste said, ignoring their bickering, “I have been the target of vicious attacks, all of them planned by my uncle. He’s had my wine, my food, and even my pets poisoned.”

Laurent frowned. Pets?

“Again,” Lord Tours said, “I ask for proof.”

“And you shall have it, Lord Touars, if you’d be so kind as to let me finish.” Auguste rolled his shoulder discreetly. Laurent knew it always pained him after a day spent riding, an aftermath of the spear wound. It got worse when Auguste was tense. “Four years ago, my uncle tried to have me murdered by poisoning my horse, which brings me to the next charge against him.”

“You still haven’t provided any proof for—”

“Be quiet, old man,” Lord Guillaume told Lord Rolant from across the table. “Let the King finish his speech.”

“ _Old man_?”

Auguste said, “He has repeatedly tried to breach the alliance between Vere and Akielos. The peace treaty is clear: he who dishonors it must face the sword.” He produced a piece of paper out of thin air. It was a trick he’d always done to cheer Laurent up as a child. “Kastor of Akielos was the man my uncle chose for the job. This is the note Kastor received when he was staying in Arles with his family. It’s my uncle’s handwriting.”

The Lords leaned forward. Lord Peire took the note from Auguste’s hands and took his time reading it. Lord Jasque simply glanced at it before handing it to Lord Guillaume. When it reached the southern Lords, their expressions were surprised.

“How can we be sure this is the King’s handwriting?” Lord Rolant asked, running his fingers over the yellowed page. “It could be a trick.”

“Force him to write something in front of your eyes,” Auguste said, “and compare the two. I assure you, you will see no difference.”

Their uncle murmured something to Govart, who gingerly started to look for a piece of paper and a quill. He was slow and ill-tempered, something that made Laurent pause. Govart was not the sort of man Uncle usually approved of.

“This note proves nothing,” Lord Rolant said. “It’s nothing but a long riddle.”

“It’s the easiest riddle I have ever encountered,” Lord Peire argued.

“Even if the handwriting is similar, it could be forged.”

“I have two witnesses,” Auguste said calmly. “One is here and ready to testify.”

Laurent’s pulse sped up. Surely Auguste did not mean… He’d promised he would not make Laurent sit there and talk, he had promised he wouldn’t tell another living soul about—

“He’s talking about me,” Damianos whispered. Laurent had not heard him lean closer. “Do not fret.”

For the first time since they’d arrived, Laurent gave Damianos his full attention. They were sitting close enough to whisper but too far away to touch. In order for Damianos to know he’d been worrying, he had to have been watching Laurent.

“Does your back hurt?” Laurent asked suddenly. He could not reach out and touch Damianos, but he could have this at least. The knowledge, between them, that last night had happened.

Damianos gave him the smallest of smiles. “It does.”

“Good,” Laurent said.

“—is the other one?” Lord Touars was asking. “You said you had brought two witnesses.”

“He’s injured, but perhaps tomorrow he’ll be—”

“Tomorrow?”

Lord Peire let out a high-pitched sigh. “His Majesty was _speaking_. We are not barbarians, Lord Rolant, we must remember our place.”

Lord Rolant was red in the face. “You—”

Lord Guillaume stood and clapped once. “A recess,” he said. “Yes, that’ll do it. We need to examine the other King’s letter.” And then, realizing he’d called Auguste’s uncle a king, he added, “I meant to say—”

But his apologies were drowned by the quarreling of the other Lords. It was so loud so suddenly Laurent had to close his eyes to keep the headache away. When the noise only escalated, Laurent stood up, silently hoping Damianos would follow him, and headed towards the door.

A recess.

He needed to find Nicaise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dearies! I know this update was super late and I'm very sorry about that! I'm thinking of putting this story on pause for a week so I can work on a Lamen oneshot that I've been dying to write. Please know that if I skip one update or post later than usual that does not mean I'm abandoning this. This fic is my baby and I'd never leave any of you hanging <3
> 
> \- [Sophia drew Auguste again and it's so beautiful you will cry looking at him.](https://mossygreen-art.tumblr.com/post/625617789336633344/here-goes-sad-auguste-spoilers-for-when-the-sun) I love making him sad.
> 
> \- [LOOK AT THIS AUGUSTE too! LOOK AT HIM! (thank you vermin son, ily so much!!)](https://crazywineaunt.tumblr.com/post/625594141486792705/i-wonder-what-my-father-would-think-of-me-if-he)
> 
> \- [Gab drew Laurent and he's the cutest small bean I have ever seen.](https://damianosismyking.tumblr.com/post/625381344653066240/to-my-darling-thickenmyblood-a-quick-doodle) This is just... amazing.
> 
> I can't believe how talented the people in this fandom are? Like... please, show them some love and follow them because everything they post is amazing. They're wonderful people!
> 
> \- Please, PLEASE, if you have the time please check out [kazarina's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kazarina/pseuds/kazarina) fics! I'm re-reading ["Always you read my mind"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22648852) and it's so good, but all of this author's fics are amazing so make sure you check all of them out and maybe we can discuss which one is your favorite? Yes, I'm very invested. Yes, I'm a fangirl.
> 
> <3 Love you all!


	22. Twenty

**Twenty**

_This is my garden_ , Nicaise had said, and it certainly seemed like he’d been telling the truth.

As he advanced through the courtyard, Laurent noticed that most of his uncle’s court kept to the common areas of the castle like the main hall or the bailey but avoided the gardens. There were no guards at the entrance or inside, and so Laurent followed the stone path that led to the fountain without being interrupted.

As expected, Nicaise was there, draped lazily across the marble edge like a cat taking a nap under the sun. When he heard Laurent’s footsteps he stiffened, but quickly tried to pretend like he’d been expecting Laurent all along.

Nicaise’s clothes were similar to the ones he’d worn the day before. His vest was open on the back, laces swaying in the breeze, and underneath he was wearing nothing but a thin shirt made of dark red linen. The cuffs of his pants were rolled up to show his pale ankles, a small detail that reminded Laurent of Patras. He was barefoot, and his toes were small and very pink.

Laurent said, “Can I sit with you?”

“Where’s your puppy?” Nicaise asked. He did not protest when Laurent sat down next to him, but there was a nervousness about him that made Laurent pause. Nicaise’s eyes kept darting towards the entrance. “I know he came with you. I saw you.”

“He stayed behind to talk to my brother,” Laurent said. Sneaking a glance at the clear water of the fountain, he was more than a little pleased with himself when he could not spot Dion’s red dice at the bottom.

“Why are you here?”

Laurent watched as Nicaise shifted, sitting up so that the soles of his feet grazed the surface of the water, creating the smallest of ripples. The water glittered with sunlight, making it hard for Laurent to stare at it directly.

“I was bored,” Laurent said. “I thought maybe you’d like to play a game with me.”

Nicaise kicked at the water. “You’re too old for games.”

“I know.”

“Do you have any cards?” Nicaise asked. His expression was bored, distant, but there was a hopefulness in his voice that pulled Laurent in. “I could beat you at cards with my eyes closed.”

“Dices are like cards, in a way.”

“No, they aren’t.”

Laurent smiled. He bent down at the waist and began taking off his boots. Nicaise’s eyes followed his every move, and Laurent did not need to look up to know Nicaise was frowning. Slowly, he raised his legs over the marble edge and dipped his own toes into the water. It was warm and very different from the river water Laurent had gotten used to soaking his feet in. There were no fish here, no soft mud.

“Don’t you have your own deck?” Laurent asked. “If you like cards so much—”

“I do,” Nicaise said. He’d meant to sound sharp, but all Laurent could hear was annoyance. “It’s red and black.”

“Can I see it?”

“No.”

Laurent rubbed his feet together under the water, trying not to sound too interested. His time was running out and any moment now the trial would start again, yet Laurent could not rush this. He’d been Nicaise’s age once, a thousand lifetimes ago, and he knew it did not do to rush a boy. Especially not one like Nicaise.

“He took it away, didn’t he?”

Nicaise snapped his head to the side to look at Laurent’s face. The bells hanging from his neck chimed erratically, like some sort of metallic heartbeat. “You don’t— _shut up_.”

“Don’t worry. He’ll give it back, he always does.”

“I told you to shut up,” Nicaise bit out. His blue eyes were very wide, but he did not look scared or surprised. He looked livid. “You don’t know anything.”

“I know what he’s like,” Laurent said, trying to keep his voice steady. What, he wondered, would have made him listen at that age? “And I know he’s punishing you.”

Had Laurent been wrong, Nicaise would have mocked him for it, maybe even laughed. Instead, the silence grew between them like ivy, turning thicker by the second. Nicaise’s feet had stilled over the water and his bells had stopped chiming.

“Was it because of me?”

“No,” Nicaise said, fierce enough for Laurent to know he was lying. “He’s not like that. He’s not—just _shut up_ about him.” Water splashed against the fountain statue, turning the stone boy’s knees dark. “Did you know he never talks about you?”

A small part of Laurent wanted to gloat, wanted to tell Nicaise that he knew it was a lie. _So who told you about me?_ he’d say. _Who told you I was pretty?_ And Nicaise would relent, maybe even come up with an excuse. It’d feel good for a second, the way being cruel always did, but then that second would be gone.

“I can’t imagine why he would,” Laurent said calmly.

“And when he does,” Nicaise said, “it’s only to criticize you.”

“I see.”

Nicaise seemed appeased after that. He stretched, his toes curling slightly, and lay back down across the marble, this time on his back. His thick and dark eyelashes fluttered like feathers being ruffled in the wind. He squinted at the sun, as if mad at it, and put his small hand up to give his eyes some shade.

Laurent clasped his hands together and kept them on his lap. He thought of Auguste’s face earlier this morning, the way he’d warned Laurent that there would be consequences to his actions. A wave of panic tried to pull Laurent under, for he knew that Auguste would not simply take away his toys, but he carefully fought it off. Now was not the time to worry about such things.

“I don’t want you here,” Nicaise said. And then, with the boldness only youth could grant, he added, “Fuck off.”

_All bite_ , Laurent thought. Perhaps Uncle did have a type after all.

“Govart saw me come here,” Laurent said, tasting the lie in his mouth. “I do not doubt he’ll tell my uncle we have been talking again.” He tried to read Nicaise’s face, but it was hard with it angled away. “And you know how much he hates—”

“Govart won’t say anything,” Nicaise said, and there was an edge to his voice Laurent did not like. “If you think you can scare me into telling you things, you’re wrong. I’m not scared of you.”

“I’m not trying to scare you into anything.”

“Then why are you here?”

Laurent clenched his fingers, said, “I want you to give a message to my uncle.”

Clearly offended, Nicaise sat up. Again the bells went on chiming, and Laurent thought that maybe they were not simply there to enhance Nicaise’s beauty. Maybe the boy was too good at hiding behind closed doors.

Nicaise’s voice, when he spoke again, was high-pitched and clear. Unbroken.

“I’m not a messenger.”

_I know_ , Laurent thought, _you’re just a whore_. He had to bite down on the tender flesh of his cheek to keep from speaking those words, which he knew were as petty as they were true. He wished, not for the first time since his conversation with Nicaise had started, that Damianos had followed him here. Damianos knew his way around children, he would have known what to say. Unlike Laurent.

“If you do it,” Laurent said, “you’ll be in his favor again. Isn’t that what you want?” When Nicaise didn’t argue, Laurent went on. “He’ll be pleased with you. Maybe you can tell him it was your idea all along.”

Quietly, Nicaise said, “My idea?”

“Yes. All you have to do is tell him that I wish to see him.”

“You saw him today.” Jealousy turned Nicaise’s words into needles, prickling Laurent’s skin. “You even talked to him. I was watching you.”

“But my brother was there,” Laurent said. He waited a moment, giving Nicaise the chance to say something hurtful if he wanted to. “I want to speak to him in private, but we must be discreet about it.”

“Discreet,” Nicaise said.

Laurent was quiet for a second, debating with himself how much he should tell Nicaise. In the silence that followed, Nicaise moved closer to Laurent, so carefully that his bells did not give him away.

“He’s going to cut your head off,” Nicaise said with mirth. His hot breath fanned across Laurent’s cheek, just like Damianos’s did when they stood too close. But there was nothing tender about this. Not even the sickly sweet smell of lavender was comforting. “Talking to him _in private_ won’t change that.”

Laurent looked down at his feet. His toes were turning into prunes, the warm water making his skin age thirty years in the span of a few minutes. It looked—and felt—like a nightmare. He thought of asking Nicaise how old he thought Laurent was, but the thought withered and died as soon as it came. Determinedly, Laurent pulled his feet out of the water.

“We’ll have to wait and see, I suppose,” Laurent said and tried to smile. “Now, do you want to play?”

Nicaise was wary, which was smart of him. It was the smartest thing Laurent had seen him do since they’d met. He said, “You don’t have cards.”

“I don’t, but you have a dice.”

“So what?” Nicaise asked. “You can’t have it back. It’s mine now.” And then, in case the real message had not penetrated Laurent’s thick skull, he added, “You’re too old.”

“I won’t take it away, I only want—let me teach you how to play.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s fun,” Laurent said slowly. “You can even play with it on your own.”

He wanted to give Nicaise this, for he knew his days were numbered. If asked to, Laurent would not have been able to explain it, not even to Damianos, not even to himself.

The trial had most likely begun already, yet this seemed more urgent. It seemed crucial.

Even after all the winters that had passed since then, Laurent still remembered the lukewarm sun of Ios and the way Dion’s calloused hands had guided his, teaching him how to throw a dice. _Sit_ , he had told Laurent, _you can’t play on your feet._

Before he could stop himself, Laurent asked, “Do you have any friends here?”

“Friends?” Nicaise’s mouth curled in distaste. “Of course not. Do you?”

“Yes.”

Nicaise’s scowl went from mocking to irritated. “I bet you only have one, and he doesn’t even count because he’s an Akielon dog.” When Laurent did not reply, Nicaise only pushed harder. “Does he bend you over and take you as your brother does?”

Looking at Nicaise was hard, not because of what he was saying, but because Laurent had spoken like this once. Time was thinning out, twisting, and Laurent felt as though he was standing outside of his body, years back into the past. A mirror would have been kinder than this, Laurent thought. A mirror he could have endured.

“You have nice wrists,” Laurent said. “You’ll be good at this.”

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”

“I did.”

Nicaise frowned. “He didn’t mention you were simple-minded.”

Laurent tried to smile again. Damianos had always smiled at him as a child, that much Laurent remembered. “Have you ever played knucklebones? Dices are similar but better.”

Nicaise touched the back of his neck, feeling the small bones of his own spine. “No.”

“Can I have your dice for a moment?”

“What makes you think I have it with me?” Nicaise’s fingers twitched, his right hand hovering over the breast pocket of his vest. “Use a pebble to demonstrate. Or something.”

Laurent sat cross-legged and leaned to the side, using his left hand to reach into the water and pluck a small rock from the bottom. His whole sleeve, up to his elbow, got wet, but the day was warm enough that Laurent did not mind it. The sun would dry it in a matter of minutes.

The pebble was a brown color, but in Laurent’s hand, it looked darker. He held it in the center of his palm for Nicaise to see, just like he’d done with the dice, and then closed his fingers around it.

“Blow,” Laurent said, lifting his fist so it was leveled with Nicaise’s mouth.

Nicaise leaned closer, trying to get a peek through Laurent’s fingers. When that did not work, he sat back on his haunches and said, “No.”

“It won’t work if you don’t.”

“I don’t care,” Nicaise said, but he kept glancing at Laurent’s hand. “This is stupid.”

Laurent could have pushed but didn’t. He brought his fist to his own mouth, sighed into it, and then unclenched his fingers. The pebble was gone, and so was Nicaise’s disinterest.

“How did you—” Nicaise cut himself off, munching on his lower lip. He grabbed Laurent’s hand and twisted it, poking at his wrist and fingers. He even went as far as looking under Laurent’s wet sleeve. “ _How_?”

Instead of replying, Laurent leaned closer and tugged at Nicaise’s right ear. Before the boy could swat his hand away, Laurent leaned back. The pebble was in his hand again, cold and slightly wet against his skin.

Nicaise touched his ear without saying a word.

“You need to flick your wrist like this,” Laurent said, and proceeded to show him. The pebble landed between them on the marble edge. “With a dice, you have to pay attention to its faces. If you get a certain symbol, you win.”

“Which symbol?” Nicaise asked, staring hard at the pebble as though it was the red dice Laurent knew was hiding in his pocket. “They’re all Akielon symbols.”

“And?”

“They all look the same.”

Laurent thought of Aesop for a second. _Letters are the bones of words_ , he’d told Dion. “Can you read?”

Nicaise simply stared at him in response.

“Can you write any words?”

“Yes,” Nicaise said defensively. His hand was still curled around his ear as if protecting it from Laurent’s sorcery. “I’m not stupid.”

Pets only knew how to write one thing: their own names. It seemed Nicaise was no different. Maybe he’d been taught only so he could sign his contract.

“I never said you were.”

The sun hid behind a cloud. Laurent’s arm was suddenly very cold, water still dripping from the hem of his sleeve. In the breeze, the stench of lavender oil was unbearable, but Laurent simply breathed through his mouth and did his best to ignore the taste it left on his tongue.

Looking over Laurent’s shoulder, Nicaise said, “Your puppy’s here.”

“Is he?” Laurent did not turn around. He soaked up Nicaise’s expression—the slight pout, the fringed wildness of his blue eyes, the artificial crimson of his cheeks. He guessed by Nicaise’s growing stiffness that Damianos was approaching them. “Will you do as I asked?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Tell him I’ve—” Laurent paused, hearing for footsteps. Damianos was still some distance away. “I’ve thought of him too. Fondly.”

Nicaise kicked the pebble into the fountain again. “I’m not a messenger.”

_He’s not yours_ , Laurent wanted to say. He almost did, but the words tangled in his mouth at the last second. He could not afford to get on Nicaise’s bad side. It was better like this, Laurent knew. _Let him think that I don’t stand a chance against him, that I’m too old_. If Nicaise did not feel threatened, he’d deliver Laurent’s message.

“Laurent.”

Laurent stood up. He didn’t realize he was barefoot until his feet touched the ground. Stepping into his boots was a hassle, but Laurent managed it without having to bend over.

“Has it started already?”

“I don’t know if it will,” Damianos said in a low voice. He was watching Nicaise play by the water with a strange look on his face. “There’s been some… incidents.”

Laurent walked over to him. It was safe here, even with Nicaise staring at them. “Incidents?”

“Lord Touars threw a cup of wine at Lord Peire.” A pause. Damianos’s eyes found Laurent’s. “Lord Guillaume called it an assassination attempt.”

The sound of splashing water grew louder as if Nicaise was trying to drown out their conversation.

Laurent started walking back towards the courtyard, touching some of the rose bushes as he went. A warm hand encircled his wrist, stopping him, but by then the damage had been done. There was a small gash on the pad of Laurent’s index finger where a thorn had cut him. Blood started to well up, a fat red dot that only grew bigger and bigger.

Without thinking twice about it, Laurent put his finger in his mouth and sucked.

Damianos looked like he was in pain. “Laurent.”

“What?” Laurent asked around his finger. “We should hurry. Aren’t you supposed to testify?”

“The Lords are…” Damianos made a vague gesture with his hand. His eyes never left Laurent’s face. “Auguste is trying to settle them down, but I don’t think it’s going to work.”

“But what about the note? Wasn’t my uncle supposed to write one so they could compare it to Kastor’s?”

Damianos tugged at his wrist gently, pulling Laurent’s hand away from his mouth. He said, “They were about to, but then Lord Touars decided he was thirsty. By the time a servant had come with a pitcher of wine and some cups, the Lords were already arguing about vineyards and grapes and…” Damianos broke off. He looked down at their joined hands. In a strained voice: “Lord Peire said northern wine is the sweetest in Vere.”

“And that’s when Lord Touars threw a cup at him.”

“Yes.”

Laurent tsked. “Lord Peire deserved it.”

“Laurent.”

“Damianos.”

“You should go back to the camp,” Damianos said, dropping Laurent’s hand. “I need to stay here in case Auguste needs me, but you…” He paused. An awkward silence fell over them, for Laurent knew what Damianos had been about to say. “It’d be wise of you to leave now.”

“Wise?”

“You should stay out of Auguste’s sight for the rest of the day,” Damianos said slowly. “What you did this morning… He’s not going to forget about it.”

Laurent looked back at the fountain. Nicaise was still there, throwing pebbles into the water. He wasn’t exactly playing with the dice Laurent had given him, but Laurent’s eyes caught the way Nicaise would flick his wrist sharply before letting go of the pebbles. He was practicing.

“He’s not going to punish me,” Laurent said with a confidence he did not feel. Judging by Damianos’s expression, he did not seem very confident about it either. “It would make him look terrible. Like a jealous lover.”

Damianos gave him a long look. “I don’t think he cares much about appearances anymore.”

For the second time that morning, panic threatened to pull Laurent under. It had been easy to ignore this with Nicaise, easy to focus on the game. It was not easy with Damianos looking at him like this.

“So he’ll take away my mare,” Laurent said, hating the way his voice trembled. “He’s done that before.”

Gently, Damianos said, “When you were a child.”

_You’re too old_ , Nicaise had said. And it was true. Auguste would never have dared to punish a child, but Laurent wasn’t a child anymore.

Laurent looked down at his bleeding finger and thought of Antoine. The idea seemed ridiculous at first, for he knew Auguste would never have his men hold Laurent down as he cut one of Laurent’s fingers off. It was preposterous, something to laugh at.

“He can’t have me flogged,” Laurent said, arguing with himself. Damianos, after all, had not said another word. “I’m the Prince.”

“He won’t hurt you,” Damianos said. He still was a terrible liar. “I’ll talk to him, get him to calm down. But you need to stay away, Laurent. I mean it.”

“You can’t honestly think my brother would—”

“I think Auguste is very upset,” Damianos said. “And I think you don’t know when to stop pushing him.”

Laurent let his hand wander back into the thick bush to his right. This time, he stroked the petals of a rose instead of a thorn. Damianos watched him, moving closer when he saw Laurent’s hand drawing near to the stem.

“What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

“Laurent.”

“Realistically,” Laurent said, “most punishments are below my status.”

“ _Realistically_ , Auguste is the King. His word is the law. If he decides he wants to flog you, I don’t think any of his men will intervene. The Lords definitely won’t.”

Laurent thought about the crop for a second and how it had looked in Auguste’s hand. Then he said, “He’s my brother.”

“It won’t come to that,” Damianos said firmly. “Just avoid him for the rest of the day. Can you do that?”

“He’ll come looking for me.”

“I’ll distract him.”

“You can’t distract him forever,” Laurent said. “He’ll find me eventually.”

Damianos smiled. It was small, barely there, and yet Laurent felt compelled to return the gesture.

“‘Eventually’,” Damianos said, “is not a problem we need to be worrying about now.”

*

Paschal’s tent looked exactly the same as last time Laurent had been there: depressingly ugly and devoid of any luxuries. There were no guards outside, which did not surprise Laurent. Aimeric wasn’t strong enough to try and run now, and Auguste trusted Jord to keep an eye on him. Maybe Paschal, too.

Laurent walked through the open tent flaps, making sure to step on as many twigs and crunchy leave as possible so as to be heard. The last thing he wanted was to walk in on Jord and Aimeric sharing… a moment.

It was midday, but because sunlight did not reach this part of the camp the tent was unusually dark. It took Laurent’s eyes a few seconds to adjust, which he spent blinking furiously. As much as he hated the grotesque shadows that candles and oil lamps threw on the walls, being in total darkness was not much better.

Jord stood up, one of his hands was still curled around Aimeric’s limp one. He cleared his throat once, twice, then said, “Your Highness?”

Despite it being dark, Laurent could still see the bruise-like bags under Jord’s eyes. They hadn’t seen each other since _the incident_ , but Jord looked exactly the same as he had a few days ago. Laurent wrinkled his nose as he inspected him. There was dirt on one of his cheeks like someone had caressed his face with a dirty thumb.

“I want to talk to you,” Laurent said. When he saw that Jord had started to sink back into the chair by Aimeric’s bed, he added, “Outside. Now.”

Jord did not try to protest. He straightened and, letting go of Aimeric’s hand, walked past Laurent and out of the tent. Without Jord in it, Paschal’s tent seemed somehow uglier.

Laurent dithered inside for a moment. Aimeric’s right hand—the one Jord had been holding—was dangling from the edge of the bed.

“Your Highness?”

Laurent let his legs carry him away from Aimeric and into the real, bright world where Jord was waiting for him. The sudden change in lightning made Laurent’s head throb. Seeing Jord’s face in the daylight only worsened the ache.

“You look disgusting,” Laurent said. Upon sniffing, he added, “And you smell disgusting too. When was the last time you washed?”

Jord did not flinch. “Three days ago, Your Highness.”

They looked at each other for a while, not speaking. A few miles away from them, close to the center of the camp, men were beginning to line up for lunch. The wind brought Laurent both their laughter and the smell of roasted meat.

Laurent had thought about this moment a lot. In the quiet hours before dawn, with Damianos breathing soundly close by, Laurent had imagined what it’d be like to open his mouth and tell Jord what he thought of him. Jord would be easy to rile up, especially once Laurent brought Aimeric into the conversation, and past a certain point, the truth would spill out of him like vomit. He’d confess and Laurent would finally feel—what, exactly?

“I know about you and Lazar.”

Jord tilted his head up, eyes searching the thick treetops for the glimmering sun. “King Damianos told me about your assumptions, Your Highness.”

It felt to Laurent as though they were back in Arles, fighting over Aimeric’s barrette. “Assumptions?”

“I would never betray the King,” Jord said, “and I would certainly never ask another man to do it either.”

“I,” Laurent said, and stopped. “Are you mocking me?”

Jord looked at him, his gaze was unwavering. “No, Your Highness.”

Laurent’s fingers twitched, aching to be around Jord’s throat, squeezing. He took a step closer and then another, suddenly unbothered by the stench of dried sweat and blood. Jord didn’t retreat, holding his ground like Laurent was nothing but a small child throwing a tantrum. In that moment, Laurent envied Damianos’s height. If possible, Laurent would have traded bodies with him just for this, even if it meant having a smaller brain.

“If it wasn’t for me,” Laurent said, “you’d be dead right now.”

Jord said, “Dead?”

The way Jord said that word made Laurent pause. He knew what he wanted to say— _My brother would have killed you if I’d told him_ —and yet the words stayed stuck in his throat, choking him.

Would Auguste have believed him?

“Do you know why Aimeric stole that letter?”

The tired slouch of Jord’s shoulders disappeared. He still looked awful, but Laurent could see a sharpness in him that had not been there before.

“No, Your Highness.”

Laurent could no longer tell if Jord was lying or not. His own rage was burning away all thought, scorching every other word Laurent might have daydreamed of saying. He would not be played like this, not by Jord.

“Tell me, why do you think Aimeric has come along with us on this marvelous journey?”

Jord was quiet.

Laurent pressed closer. He wanted to memorize Jord’s expression. “I bet he told you it was because he could not bear to be away from you for so long. I bet you were stupid enough to believe him.”

“Whatever happened between you as children,” Jord said, trying to sound calm and failing, “you must understand it was not his fault.”

But Laurent did not want to think about the child Aimeric had been. He did not want to look at those memories, at the pristine image in his head of Aimeric’s face underwater, at the words they had exchanged in the kitchens during a game.

_The ways of boys_.

“He stole that letter because my uncle asked him to.”

“Aimeric is a southerner,” Jord said. “His whole family is from Fortaine, it only makes sense that he—”

“Except that’s not why he did it. Don’t be a fool, Jord. You _know_. I know you do.” A pause. Laurent waited for Jord to say it, to say anything, but Jord stayed silent and solemn and stupid. “Aimeric doesn’t care about the south. I doubt he even cares about you.”

For the first time since the conversation had started, Jord looked away. “Your Highness.”

“Must I say it out loud? I’d hate to gossip about little Aimeric’s virtue. Not that he has any, of course.”

Jord said, “Stop.”

Damianos would have told him the same thing. Laurent pushed that thought and the guilt that came with it away. It wasn’t as though he didn’t want to stop—he just couldn’t.

“The only thing he’s ever been good at is being fucked,” Laurent said. He forced himself not to blink, wanting to see every twitch of Jord’s mouth, every quiver of his lips. “Did he tell you he was a virgin, that he wanted to go slow? You can’t have honestly believed him. He was a peach of a little boy. A pretty peach. Who can blame my uncle for taking a bite?”

Jord only stared at him for a long time. “The King was right,” he said in a flat voice. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

“The King is an idiot.”

“Is he? Or did His Majesty simply refuse to blindly believe your assumptions?”

Laurent relaxed. This was the Jord he knew, the one he’d grown up with. This Jord he could understand. Perhaps there was still some loyal bone in his body, even after everything.

“You’re not surprised,” Laurent said, “because you knew about it. You’ve always known, haven’t you? About Aimeric.”

_About me._

Very slowly, Jord put his hands on Laurent’s shoulders, right over the pads of his vest. Even though he smelled absolutely vile, Laurent wanted to lean into him, and that thought was what put him out of his stupor.

“He was just a boy,” Jord said. “Whatever he did to you, whatever he said—”

“Let go.”

Jord didn’t comply immediately. He gave Laurent’s shoulders a light squeeze and only then let go. “Is there anything else you’d like to discuss, Your Highness? I’m not supposed to leave him on his own for too long.”

“Why not?”

“Paschal’s orders.”

Laurent wanted him to say it, wanted Jord to admit to what he’d been planning to do, but he was suddenly very tired of arguing. Maybe if he got Lazar drunk enough, he’d confess, and then Laurent could finally decide what to do with them.

“Yes,” Laurent said. “Find some water and soap and wash yourself. Now.”

“I will. I only need to find Paschal so he can stay with—”

Sidestepping him, Laurent said, “I’ll stay with Aimeric until you return.”

“Your Highness, there is no need for you to stay here. Lazar can watch him, or Huet.” Jord’s voice grew louder, more panicked. “The King will be back soon, I’ll warrant.”

Laurent stopped before the closed entrance of the tent. “I suggest you hurry. There are other things I need to get done today.” After a second’s consideration, he added, “You should shave too. That beard looks almost as disgusting as my brother’s.”

Inside, Aimeric was still asleep. His breathing sounded wet, as though he had something stuck in his throat, but other than that and the bruises on his face he looked the way he always did: pathetic.

Laurent sat down on the only chair by the pallet being very careful not to accidentally touch Aimeric’s hand. The smell of blood was stronger here, and so was the minty ointment Paschal always used to treat certain wounds. It was the same smell that had clung to Auguste for months after the spear, no matter how much perfume he’d put on or how many baths he’d take.

“I could kill you,” Laurent said. He waited, watching Aimeric’s closed eyelids to make sure he really was asleep. His right eye was a purple mess, but the left one looked normal. “I could grab this pillow and smother you to death with it.”

Aimeric’s slow and tedious breathing was his only reply.

Laurent leaned forward. He pressed his fingertips to the dark blue bruise on Aimeric’s jaw until the skin turned white. When Aimeric did not stir, Laurent pressed harder. Then he let go, leaning back into his chair.

Conversationally, Laurent said, “I saw him today. He looks the same, in case you were wondering. It seems time has only passed for us.” A long pause. Laurent’s steady breathing, Aimeric’s uneven one. “For you, I mean.”

Outside, lunch was being served. Jord was probably by the stables, which was where the men kept the water buckets and the soap. Laurent imagined him undressed, scrubbing furiously at the skin of his chest and thighs, trying to be done with it as quickly as possible so he could make sure Aimeric was not harmed. That, too, was pathetic.

“I’m going to ask him about you,” Laurent said, “when the time comes. I can’t imagine what he’ll say, but I know you won’t be pleased with it.” He examined his fingernails and the cut on his right hand where he’d prickled himself with a rose thorn earlier. It had stopped bleeding some time ago, but Laurent was certain that if he wanted to he’d be able to draw blood again. Quickly. Effortlessly. “Maybe he won’t even remember your name. Maybe I’ll have to describe you to him.”

The tent flaps flew open, faint sunlight coming through like a thousand shiny arrows.

Turning, Laurent said, “Jord, you—” He stopped. It was not Jord standing at the entrance.

Auguste’s face was carefully blank. His eyes, which Laurent had always been able to read without great effort, were also devoid of emotion. For a split-second, Laurent entertained the thought that Auguste was not seeing him, that he had not realized Laurent was there at all.

And then Auguste said, “Get out.”

_Here to visit your pet?_ Laurent kept his mouth shut. It took a great deal of effort. When he was certain those words would not come tumbling out of his mouth, he said, “Why?”

“Where’s Jord?”

Laurent gripped the sides of his chair. “Washing himself. It shouldn’t take him long to come back.”

Auguste stepped inside and came to stand before Laurent. He smelled of horse and oils and sweat, and for a second Laurent contemplated telling him so. Again, it took a great deal of effort to keep the comment to himself.

“Get,” Auguste said, each sound rolling off his mouth with perfect ease, “out.”

Damianos’s words came back to him: _I think you don’t know when to stop pushing him_.

Laurent tightened his grip on the chair. “Why? I’m not hurting him, am I? What reason could you possibly—”

“I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to hear you speak. I don’t want to hear you breathing around me.” Auguste’s fingers closed around the collar of Laurent’s undershirt and pulled. In order to keep the fabric from tearing, Laurent had to let of the chair and stand up. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice what you’re trying to do? I am done with your games, Laurent. Get. Out.”

Stubbornly, Laurent dug his heels into the soft earth. Paschal’s tent was so rudimentary there were no furs or cloth on the ground.

“Then _leave_. I was here first. This isn’t even your tent, so why should I be the one to—”

Auguste was dragging him out by the shirt. No amount of struggling on Laurent’s behalf would have stopped him, and so Laurent let himself be yanked away from Aimeric’s bedside and out of the tent.

A dark hand closed around Auguste’s fist, prying it away from Laurent’s clothes.

Damianos said, “That’s enough.”

Auguste opened his mouth, but Laurent was faster. Turning to Damianos, he said, “Stay out of this.”

“I don’t think I will,” Damianos said. He let go of Auguste’s hand and retreated enough to assess them both. “You need to stop this. The men are watching, _everyone_ is watching, and you keep quarreling like—”

“I was watching Aimeric,” Laurent said, looking at Auguste. “I wasn’t doing anything. Will you have me flogged for relieving Jord of his duty for an hour?”

Auguste’s flat, dead voice: “And give you another reason to run off to Uncle? I don’t think so.”

Laurent felt his face heat up at the accusation. So Auguste _had_ noticed. “You’re right. The list of reasons is quite long already.”

Auguste moved away after that blow. He didn’t stagger or sway, but he withdrew. Turning his back on both Damianos and Laurent, he advanced towards Paschal’s tent.

“Auguste,” Damianos called after him, his hand outstretched as if to stop him from leaving. “You know he doesn’t mean it.”

Laurent said, “I do.”

Auguste stopped walking. His hand stilled over the door of cloth. There was a shaky exhale of breath that sounded like a tired laugh, and then Auguste was gone, slipping inside the tent without a word or a glance in their direction.

What Damianos had said minutes ago was true: the curious circle of guards that had gathered around them to witness the exchange was now scattering, men returning to their duties while whispering about what they’d seen.

Laurent walked away from the tent, away from Auguste. The edge of the camp provided silence and privacy. He needed—

Damianos said, “I told you not to push him.”

“No. You told me I didn’t know when to stop pushing him. There’s a difference between—”

“Laurent.”

“I was right,” Laurent said, trying to feel smug about it and failing. He could not stop thinking about Auguste’s face. “He didn’t punish me.”

“He’s taking away your lands,” Damianos said. “All except for Acquitart.”

“That’s not a punishment.”

“He wanted to keep you from attending the trial, but the Lords and I convinced him that it would only create more issues.”

“My uncle publicly invited me to attend the trial,” Laurent said. He forced himself to hold Damianos’s gaze. “If he wants me there, then that’s where I’ll be.”

Damianos’s face did not change. “I shook his hand today,” he said calmly. “He’s one of the reasons my brother is dead. And yet he still smiled at me like there was no bad blood between us.”

“It is called being diplomatic, Damianos. What did you expect him to say?

“He tried to murder Auguste. Doesn’t that—are you not hearing yourself talk?”

“Kastor tried to murder Auguste too,” Laurent said. Dream-Kastor came to the front of his mind, a murmuring head that never stopped rolling. “Kastor wanted you dead, or have you forgotten about that? Perhaps my uncle did you a favor, in the end.”

Unlike Auguste, Damianos did not recoil. “Did he? I’ll make sure to thank him next time we see each other. Should I mention the Patran assassins he sent to kill me or would that be considered undiplomatic?”

“You forget your place.”

“I’m here as your brother’s friend,” Damianos said. Laurent waited for him to go on— _And yours, too_ —but the reply he was expecting never came. “You’re the one who forgets why you’re here. I was in the room when Auguste asked you to trust him. I was there when you promised him you wouldn’t do this.”

“This?” Laurent said. “This is nothing.”

“Laurent.”

“He’s my uncle.”

“And Auguste is your brother,” Damianos said. He took a step towards Laurent but stopped when Laurent took one back. “I know what it’s like to find yourself in the middle of a family feud.”

Laurent’s stomach clenched around the implication. “Auguste isn’t Kastor.”

To that, Damianos said nothing.

“He’s _not_ ,” Laurent said, more frantically this time. The murmuring head. The sword. “And my uncle isn’t like your father.”

“No,” Damianos said. “He’s worse than my father.”

Laurent felt his own cruelty materialize, not like a wellspring or an urge, but real as an organ. Real as a throbbing heart. He wanted to hurt Damianos like he’d never wanted to hurt another person, not even Aimeric. Not even himself.

“Your father was a barbarian,” Laurent said with a steady, impersonal voice, “with barbaric ambitions. He was an animal, war-hungry and amoral. He was a slave owner. He fathered a bastard and, instead of killing him when he was a babe, raised him with the promise of the throne, only to cut his head off at the first minor inconvenience. He was—”

“All of those things,” Damianos said. “And more.” He walked up to Laurent, closing the gap between them. His face was not made new with pain or anger. It was the same face Laurent had touched the night before in a tent. “I know who my father and brother were. Do you know who your uncle is? Sometimes, I get the impression that you don’t.”

“Of course I know who he is.”

There was a pause, a shift in the conversation. Damianos said, “He’s a traitor. He’s tried to murder your brother, the _King_ , countless of times. He’s just as war-hungry as my father was. Do I need to remind you how hard he fought against the peace treaty, against the alliance? He’s using your love for him against Auguste, just like he used Kastor’s envy. He’s the reason you can’t be left alone with your brother. He’s—”

“All of those things,” Laurent said calmly. “And more.”

Damianos’s hands cupped his face, thumbs pressing into Laurent’s cheekbones. “Tell me.”

“There is nothing to tell.”

“Tell me what your plan is. Tell me how to help.”

Laurent blinked. The heat of Damianos’s hands on him was reddening his cheeks, he could feel it. Suddenly it was hard to think. “My plan?”

“You—” Damianos cut himself off. He was frowning and trying not to at the same time. “You’ve been to the trial, you’ve heard the Lords.”

“And?”

“It’s a mess. They don’t care about—any side could win. This isn’t about honesty or honor or fairness. You know this. You have a plan.”

Slowly, Laurent pushed Damianos’s hands away. “My plan,” he said, “is to run away if my brother’s head hits the ground.”

“I don’t believe that.”

But Laurent could see that he did. There was a tremor to Damianos’s words, a shuddering of sorts, and Laurent caught up on it. Trust, it seemed, was not blind.

“This is your fault,” Laurent said. “I asked you to convince Auguste not to come. I asked you to lend him an army. In a war, Auguste would have had a chance to win.” He remembered, vaguely, the way Damianos had reacted to the prospect of a military confrontation. He pushed the memory away. “You’re so scared of being like your father that you—”

“That’s enough,” Damianos said. “You don’t have to do this on your own. I’m here, I’m offering you help. This is what I came to do.”

Laurent’s laughter bounced off the tree trunks around them and scared birds into flight. “You’re here to help me escape, not to come up with some plan to help my brother win. There is no plan.” He shoved Damianos away. Even though there was no strength behind the push, Damianos staggered backward. “Go find a pet to bother.”

Laurent turned towards the forest and started walking again. Even though this part of the camp was the farthest away from the dirt path, Laurent did not worry. He knew his way around; he’d been paying attention in case he needed to leave on his own. The maps he’d studied with Damianos gave him a mental image of where the camp, the castle, and the river were.

He stopped abruptly, and said, “Stop following me.”

“All right.”

Laurent moved forward again, stepping over moss-covered rocks and fallen trunks, but stopped again when he heard the cracking sound of dry leaves being stomped on. This time he turned around to face Damianos, his fists already clenched and aching to connect with the brute’s face.

“I told you to—”

“I’m not following you,” Damianos said. He was looking up at the little patches of sky visible through the tree branches. “I’m simply walking through the forest.”

“You’re walking,” Laurent said, seething, “right behind me. That means you are following me.”

“Perhaps we’re headed to the same place.”

Laurent wanted to hurl a rock at him. Instead, he clenched and unclenched his fists, telling himself over and over again that it would take more than a single rock to take Damianos down. He thought, wistfully, of the bow and arrows hiding under his pallet.

“I want to be alone,” Laurent said. “Is it too much to ask? A few minutes without your tedious, irritating, smothering—”

“Let me walk you to the stream.”

“—presence.”

Damianos only stepped closer as if he had not heard the myriad of insults Laurent had been throwing at him for the last hour. “I won’t bother you.”

“You always bother me,” Laurent said. “You’re bothering me right now.”

“I’ll stop talking then,” Damianos replied. “Go on, I’ll trail after you in absolute silence.”

_Like a puppy_ , Laurent thought. Nicaise’s sneer came to him, but Laurent did not want to think about that. He wanted to pretend there were no other boys, no other set of earrings. It was easier like that, and Laurent needed simplicity.

The stream was close. Laurent could hear it. He turned his back on Damianos and continued to sidestep rocks and trunks, focusing on the sole task of reaching the water. Fallen branches cracked under his boots every now and then, barely heard over the increasingly loud sound of water rushing.

When he finally reached the water, Laurent stopped. He held his breath, trying to hear if Damianos was still behind him or if he’d given up and gone back to the camp. There was only silence for a few minutes and so Laurent relaxed, rolling his shoulders to get rid of some of the tension he’d been carrying around with him the whole day.

And then Damianos said, “Let me.”

Laurent stilled. “You said you wouldn’t speak.” He felt Damianos move behind him, drawing nearer and nearer. “And now you’re—”

Damianos’s hands were mere inches away from Laurent’s shoulders, hovering over them. “May I?”

_Yes._

“Like this?” Laurent asked mockingly. “Standing?”

Damianos laughed, moving away. “Let us sit down if you’re scared I’ll push you into the water.”

Laurent’s pants were dark enough that they wouldn’t show any wet spots or dirt, but he still hesitated for a moment before lowering himself to the ground. He wanted to rest, that was all. It was cooler by the water, the air somehow clearer. It had nothing to do with Damianos.

“You never answered my question.”

Laurent rearranged his limbs, sitting cross-legged while avoiding certain mossy spots. “You may.”

It was still a surprise when Damianos touched his shoulders. The fabric of Laurent’s shirt wasn’t thick, and it allowed Laurent to feel every single pad of Damianos’s fingers against his skin.

Damianos worked in silence for a while. True to his promise, he didn’t try to engage Laurent in conversation or ask him any questions, focusing solely on kneading Laurent’s shoulders and back.

Every now and then his fingers would brush against the hot skin of Laurent’s nape or tug on his braid, which should have made Laurent elbow him in the stomach but instead only turned Laurent’s limbs heavier and heavier, stiff muscles untangling and coming undone under Damianos’s hands.

Laurent leaned back into the touch, still watching the water. A small blue fish was swimming against the current, circling a rock. Laurent watched it for a while, his eyelids growing as heavy as his arms and legs, closing.

The back of his head met something solid to rest on. It took Laurent’s fogged brain some time to realize it was Damianos’s shoulder.

“I still think you—”

“I know,” Damianos said. His breathing was steady and rhythmic against Laurent’s cheek. “I know what you think of me.”

The words should have pleased Laurent, but instead, they made him feel ashamed. He closed his eyes against the feeling.

Damianos had stopped his ministrations—the angle was too awkward for him to continue—but he did not push Laurent away. He sneaked both arms under Laurent’s, crossing them over Laurent’s chess, holding him in place and against him. If he were to pull, even slightly, Laurent’s body would follow the movement and shift enough to sit on his lap. Yet Damianos stayed still.

“You don’t...” Laurent trailed off, closed-eyed and feverishly warm. He curled his hands around Damianos’s forearms, telling himself he was looking for more scars to uncover and trace. The skin under his fingertips was smooth and flushed as if blushing. “Know.”

Damianos huffed. When he spoke, his lips moved against Laurent’s right temple. “I’m a simple-minded barbarian who can only be trusted to get you on a horse and away from Vere.”

Laurent’s fingers found a small, uneven patch of skin close to Damianos’s elbow. “You forgot annoying,” he said in Akielon.

“ _Annoying_ ,” Damianos corrected him. There was laughter in his voice already, but Laurent wanted even more. “You think you can distract me with your terrible pronunciation?”

“Yes.”

Damianos did not deny it.

Laurent said, “You went to Vask.”

“I did.” Damianos did not sound particularly interested. His thumb brushed against Laurent’s arm, not quite reaching his wrist.

Laurent shifted in his arms, turning his head to the side so he could look up at Damianos’s face. “You met the Empress.”

“I did.”

“I read that her court consists of only women,” Laurent said. He watched Damianos’s mouth twitch. “Most of them don’t marry.”

“It’s true. The Empress isn’t married. She has over one hundred male concubines.”

Laurent dug his fingers into the soft skin of Damianos’s arm. “It must have been blissful for you.” A pause. Damianos’s confused frown. “All those unmarried women.”

“I,” Damianos started, and stopped.

There was a long, stretched-out silence. Laurent closed his eyes again, listening to the stream. He could see the blue fish in his head, swimming in circles, around and around…

“It was,” Damianos said, this time against Laurent’s hair. “At first. They wanted something I couldn’t give them. It made things… tense.”

Laurent thought of pleasure: a body writhing on the sheets of a bed, a half-sighed moan. “I thought you were good with your hands.”

Damianos let out a surprised laugh. Laurent pressed closer into him, trying to soak it all up.

“That’s not—it was not like that. They wanted daughters.”

Laurent felt the mood changing, Damianos’s arms around him stiffening. They had never spoken about this. Jokaste was the only other person who knew, but she was in Akielos.

It was just the two of them now, here.

“Perhaps it isn’t permanent,” Laurent said, softer than he would have liked to sound. “Perhaps…”

“I think it is,” Damianos said. The smile was back on his face, a toothy grin that Laurent felt rather than saw. “Do you know what the Vaskian Midwife told me when I went to see her?”

“You mean the night you took the herbs?”

Damianos nodded. His expression did not match the heavy conversation they were having. “She told me it was a waste,” he said, “because I have a strong jaw and very long eyelashes. Like a cow.”

Laurent let go of Damianos’s arm. Slowly, so as to not startle him, Laurent pressed his fingers to Damianos’s jaw. He felt the bones there, solid and covered by taut skin. Then, he moved his hand up and up and up, past Damianos’s cheek, and carefully ran his thumb over Damianos’s thick eyelashes.

Laurent removed his hand. “She was right.”

“I know,” Damianos said, sounding pleased.

Another long pause. Laurent did not close his eyes or go back to staring at the water. He kept his eyes on Damianos’s face, studying his dark eyebrows and the curve of his mouth. Damianos stared back at him, his eyes bright with sunlight.

“What does he look like?” Laurent asked at last. “Your nephew, I mean.”

“He looks so much like Kastor sometimes I forget Jokaste is his mother. He doesn’t take after her at all.”

Laurent curled closer. He toyed with the gold clasp of Damianos’s chiton. “Tell me about him.”

Damianos paused, watching Laurent’s fingers. “He likes horses, but he’s too young to ride on his own. He drives Aesop mad. Jokaste says I spoil him too much, that I should speak to him more… formally.”

“Formally?”

“I call him sweetheart sometimes.” Damianos touched Laurent’s hand, prying it away from the pin. “She doesn’t like that.”

Before he could think twice about it, Laurent said, “My mother used to call me darling.”

“What was she like?”

Laurent thought about it. His memories of her were few but very clear: her blonde hair in plaits, the peach-colored dress she loved so much, her frown when she caught Auguste stealing cakes from the kitchens. There were other ones, made blurry by time, of her illness: the damp cloths on her forehead, the sheets always wet with blood, the acrid smell of vomit.

“Nice,” Laurent settled for, even though the word seemed too small, too shallow.

Damianos didn’t call him out on it. Instead, he asked, “And your father?”

“He was like Jokaste. He didn’t—”

“Go on.”

Laurent hesitated. His memories of his father were less colorful. He could see him now if he closed his eyes, laughing at one of Auguste’s jokes or sitting by his desk writing letters. But he couldn’t remember what kind of clothes he wore or how the ruby crown looked on his head.

Even his illness had been ephemeral, easy.

“Auguste was the heir,” Laurent said against Damianos’s neck. “I liked books and horses.”

Damianos didn’t say anything to that, just as Laurent had known he wouldn’t. In the silence that followed, Laurent thought of Kastor. Kastor would have known what to say. He, too, had been a spare.

“Why did you ask me about Vask?”

“I don’t know,” Laurent said. His voice sounded honest to his own ears, yet he could not help but wonder what Damianos was hearing. Then, awkwardly, “Women, I suppose.”

Damianos didn’t laugh. “What about them?”

“You’ve had them.”

“Yes.”

Laurent freed his arm from Damianos’s embrace so he could reach the stream. The water was cold despite the warm day, but Laurent still stroked the surface with his fingers, trying to distract himself, liking the way the cold licked at his skin.

“Maybe this,” Damianos said, “is the sort of conversation you should be having with your brother.”

Laurent’s hand stilled over the water. “Why?”

Damianos’s voice was formal, kingly. “If you find yourself in need of certain answers, I am sure Auguste will be a better tutor. We shouldn’t—discuss these things.”

“These things,” Laurent said.

“Women,” Damianos said. His grip on Laurent had loosened, his fingers no longer caressing Laurent’s arms through his shirt. “You’re eighteen years old.” And then, finally, after a heavy and uncomfortable pause, “If you reserve your love for women, you should know pets are still—”

“No.”

“No?” Damianos asked.

Laurent moved away from Damianos’s chest so he could look at his face. “Is that how it is, for you?” When he realized Damianos had not understood him, Laurent added, “Your love. Do you reserve it for women?”

“No, I—” Damianos cut himself off. He looked away from Laurent’s face. “I thought you… did.”

Amusement. Laurent felt unexpectedly giddy with it. “I offered myself to Prince Torveld.”

“In exchange for an army,” Damianos said, looking at the water intently. “At your age, I—” He cut himself off again, this time more abruptly. “You don’t take pets.”

Laurent watched him. Had he ever seen Damianos this flustered? “I dislike them.”

“But not because they’re men.”

“Not because they’re men,” Laurent said.

Damianos’s posture softened. A slight slouch appeared, his whole body sagging forward a few inches. He touched the water too, mirroring Laurent.

“It’s cold,” Damianos said, stupidly.

“It is.”

Without speaking, Damianos undid the straps of his sandals and took them off. He edged closer to the stream and paused as if thinking.

“I want to swim,” he said.

“You can’t swim here,” Laurent said. He was toeing off his boots. “This isn’t the Ellosean Sea.”

Damianos rolled his eyes. “How could I have missed that small detail?”

“You _are_ simple-minded.”

“And annoying.”

“And annoying,” Laurent agreed. “You can soak.”

“In cold water?” Damianos moved closer and closer to the stream, a direct contradiction to his words. In the blink of an eye, his feet were underwater. Then his calves, his knees. “Do you remember those caves I took you to when you were a child?”

Laurent did. He remembered Auguste’s red jacket, the one lined with thick wool, over his shoulders. He remembered Auguste’s hand in his, and Dion’s laughter. He even remembered Nikandros’s stern face.

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

“There is one I never took you to,” Damianos said. He was sinking further into the rushing water, the hem of his chiton already drenched. “It has a pond and the water is warmer than any baths’. I used to go there with Nikandros.”

“As a boy?”

Damianos walked in the water, holding his skirt so it would not get wet. “Yes. We would hide there from…”

“Kastor.”

Damianos looked up from the water and into Laurent’s face. He looked pleasantly surprised. “We’d play jokes on him and then run. If his mood was particularly vicious, he’d make sure to catch up to us.” Damianos stopped moving, letting the water hit his legs as it pleased. “He cut Nikandros’s braids once.”

_And stabbed you_. “I am sure it was provoked.”

“It was,” Damianos said. “We had put sand in his food.”

Laurent pressed his face into his knees, trying to smother his laughter. “How did you get Nikandros to agree to that?”

“He didn’t. He just watched while I did it.” The sound of dull footsteps, of skin against the dirt. Damianos put his hand on top of Laurent’s head, and said, “It doesn’t have to be like this. For you.”

“Like this?”

“Missing your dead brother,” Damianos said. “Talking about him instead of to him. You could walk into his tent and talk to him now, tell him—”

“Except he’s not in his tent, is he? He’s with Aimeric.” Laurent looked up. Damianos’s wet chiton was dripping around him. “And there’s nothing to tell. People are what they are.”

“He’s your brother. He hasn’t plotted against you, hasn’t hurt you. He isn’t Kastor.”

Laurent rubbed his feet against the moss. It was slimy and wet, yet he did not find it gross. He had thought, maybe stupidly so, that for once they would not have to talk about Auguste. Vask, Jokaste’s son, even Kastor… Those were things they could talk about easily. They were things that Laurent sensed Damianos had not shared with others.

But Damianos was Auguste’s friend. He was here because of that, not because of Laurent and his pathetic neediness. When he allowed Laurent to crawl into bed with him, it was an indulgence. Perhaps Auguste had asked that of him, too.

It would always come down to Auguste.

“You said you wouldn’t talk,” Laurent said. “Do you never keep your promises?”

Damianos sat down next to Laurent again. His wet chiton was getting dirty, soil turning into mud under him, but Damianos did not seem to care. When Laurent nudged him, he didn’t complain.

They stared at the water in silence. It was hours before they moved again.

*

Dinner was a quiet, private thing. Auguste retired to his tent after a cup of wine, waving Lord Guillaume off. He announced he did not want to be disturbed, and for a moment Laurent thought he was going to take a pet with him. But Auguste went into his tent alone, skillfully avoiding Laurent’s eyes.

Laurent ate everything in his bowl—for once, Guillaume’s suggestion of a liquid diet had been turned down—and then waited for Damianos to finish. They were sitting around the fire, next to the Lords.

Jord and Lazar were not there, and neither was Paschal. Laurent imagined the three of them, huddled close together around Aimeric’s bed. Even unconscious, Aimeric hoarded all the attention.

Damianos took the empty bowl away from his hands. “That’s enough staring. You should go to bed.”

“My bed?” Laurent said. “Or yours?”

Lord Peire glanced at them. When his eyes met Laurent’s, he looked away, rigid.

Damianos noticed the silent exchange and switched to Akielon. “Yours. Come into my tent when everyone has retired to bed.” After a pause, he added, “I’ll leave a light on for you.”

“So I won’t trip?” Laurent asked in Akielon. “Don’t bother. I know my way around.”

“No, I—” Damianos stopped, realizing he had gone back to Veretian. “I was thinking we could read tonight, for a change.”

“You mean that I’ll read out loud and you’ll listen?”

Damianos smiled, his cheek dimpling. “The book is in Akielon. I think I should be the one reading it to you.”

“We’ll see,” Laurent said. He stood up. “I still don’t believe you can read.”

Damianos laughed.

Startled by the sound, Lord Guillaume lifted his head and looked at them. His bowl slipped from his fat fingers, greasy turnips and meat staining the front of his shirt. A shriek. Lord Peire dropped his bowl into the dirt as well, jumping from his seat as if pushed.

At that, Damianos only laughed harder.

*

“I know how you did it,” Nicaise said.

The day was more than just warm. There was no escaping the scorching sun in the gardens, but by the water the air felt cooler, the breeze more refreshing. Laurent’s clothes were meant for the northern summer—a light shirt, slightly looser pants—and in the south they were inadequate. Laurent’s neck and face felt flushed, red. He was sweating.

Nicaise, who was dressed in an undershirt and unlaced pants, gave no signs of being affected by the stifling heat. If anything, he seemed to thrive in it. His cheeks were pink, but it did not look like the sun had burned them. His hair wasn’t damp or sticking to his forehead and his movements were lazy and unbothered, not exhausted. He was sitting on the cool marble, swinging his legs. Every time he moved, the sound of bells filled the gardens. It took Laurent a moment to realize Nicaise was wearing anklets, silver and belled. Those were new.

A gift?

“It isn’t hard,” Nicaise said, not waiting for Laurent to reply to his previous statement. “I’ve been practicing.”

Laurent sat down. He forced himself to look away from Nicaise’s ankles. “With a friend?”

“By myself.”

“I see,” Laurent said. He wanted to sound patient, but he was missing Damianos’s testimony for this. “You should—”

“Look,” Nicaise said, showing him a pebble. He closed his hand around it and held his fist to Laurent’s mouth. Another order: “Blow.”

Laurent decided to indulge him. He let out a long sigh against Nicaise’s knuckles and waited for the big reveal.

Nicaise opened his hand, pale and pink and wet. The pebble was gone, and he was staring at Laurent as if waiting for something.

“I told you,” Nicaise said. “It isn’t hard. You made it _look_ hard, but I figured it out.”

Laurent did not ask him how long it had taken him to learn the trick, or if he could make the pebble appear again. It was clear Nicaise had been waiting to show him this, had been waiting for the moment he could outdo Laurent.

It seemed unfair to take that away from him, and so Laurent didn’t.

“And your dice?” Laurent asked. “Have you been playing with it?”

Nicaise laughed. The sound was ugly, not the sort of laugh one would expect from a child. “No,” he said. “It’s boring.”

_That’s because you can’t read the symbols_ , Laurent wanted to say. He hadn’t been able to read them either that first day at the beach, and yet he had liked the game anyways. But there had been other children with him, and as nice as Laurent tried to be he wasn’t a child. Nicaise knew that.

“We could play now.”

Nicaise shook his head. A red glimmer. He was wearing his earrings again. “I don’t like dices,” he said. He’d said so before, ten times at least. “I have a new deck.”

Laurent forced himself to speak, to ignore his desert-like mouth. “I thought you had one already. Red and black.”

“This one is golden.”

Gifts. Laurent tilted his head back to watch the clouds. It was so hot his face felt like it was on flames, and he knew that if he didn’t get out of the sun soon, he would regret it later. Anklets, earrings, decks. Laurent followed an apricot-shaped cloud with his eyes, reminding himself there’d be other gifts for him. Better ones.

“I take it you gave him my message,” Laurent said, still not looking at Nicaise’s face. “What did he say?”

Nicaise did not answer right away. He retrieved the hidden pebble from the hem of his shirt and threw it in the water, watching it sink to the bottom of the fountain.

“Nicaise?”

“Tonight,” Nicaise said. He sounded more than just annoyed. When Laurent looked at him, he looked away. “The guards will let you in. He’ll meet you at the courtyard.”

“Will you be there?”

Nicaise blew his curls away from his eyes. He looked particularly moody today. Laurent wondered if it was because of his reaction towards the pebble trick. Maybe Laurent should have smiled more, beamed.

Auguste had practiced it with him, years back. He had smiled when Laurent had finally gotten it right.

“No,” Nicaise said. “I’ll be in my rooms.”

Laurent heard the careful pause, the slight provocation. _Ask me_ , Nicaise seemed to be saying. Even though he already knew the answer, Laurent said, “You have your own rooms?”

Their eyes met, blue on blue. How old, Laurent wondered, was Nicaise? The thought cheered him up. He had a year left, at most. Maybe less.

Into the silence, Laurent said, “Show me your deck. We can play cards if that’s what you prefer.”

“You don’t know how to play this card game,” Nicaise said. “It’s a southern variation.”

The heat had reached the point of torture. Laurent’s scalp was burning, his hair too fine to be of any use against the sunrays. Even his face felt chapped, as though the skin had already begun to peel. Laurent considered, for a moment, burying his face into the water. The only thing that stopped him was the unwavering gaze of the stone boy, his toothy grin a flashing warning.

Laurent said, “I’m a fast learner.”

They played the morning away. Nicaise’s deck was new, each card stiff and perfectly smooth. Wrinkles would come with use and time, this Laurent knew too well. The black and golden paint would begin to chip off, the Prince’s face would blur. Like Nicaise, the deck would have to be replaced eventually.

Soon, Laurent found that Nicaise hadn’t been lying about his skills. He was fast and knew the game well, never trying to cheat because he thought he was good enough to win on his own. The rules were simple, the victories clear. It reminded Laurent of all the nights he had spent playing chess with Auguste, always hoping to win.

Nicaise fanned himself with one of his cards as he waited for Laurent’s turn to be over. “You’re terrible at this.”

“It’s my first time playing,” Laurent said, patiently. He selected a card—the golden King—and put it down next to Nicaise’s last choice. “First times are always terrible.”

“Maybe,” Nicaise said. “Maybe not.” He slammed his card down with a triumphant smile on his face. “I win.”

“Shall we play one more time?”

Nicaise snatched the cards out Laurent’s hands as a reply. He tidied them carefully, making sure none were missing, and then slipped the deck into the front pocket of his pants. Barefoot, he stood on the edge of the fountain and began to stretch. He had very short arms.

“I’m hungry,” Nicaise said, looking down at Laurent, “and I need to nap. Leave.”

_Need_. Laurent paused, mulling over the word. “Why?”

Nicaise, who was trying to reach his toes, said, “Because these are _my_ gardens and I want you gone.”

“I was talking about the nap. You look well-rested.”

“I’m tired.”

Laurent studied Nicaise’s face. Children were stupidly easy to read, even this one. Especially this one. “You’re not,” he said. And then, “Did he ask you to wait up for him tonight?”

“So what if he did?” With a little jump, Nicaise was off the fountain and standing on the ground. They were at eye-level now. “You won’t keep him entertained for long anyways.”

_Neither will you_ , Laurent thought, but it was too sharp, too ugly. This wasn’t Aimeric.

“We should have lunch together,” Laurent said instead. “Do you like sweetmeats? I haven’t had them in years.” He patted the empty spot next to him. “Put your foot here.”

“No.”

“I simply want to tie your laces.”

Nicaise frowned, probably trying to picture it in his head: the Prince of Vere attending him as a servant would. He seemed to like the idea, for he complied, putting his foot on the marble.

The laces went from Nicaise’s ankle to the start of his thigh. The design was simple, but the quality of the fabric was good and the cut tailored. It took Laurent less than a minute to tighten the laces and tie a knot. Without being asked to, Nicaise set his other foot down and let Laurent do the same with his other leg.

“How does it feel?”

Nicaise took a few steps, walking in a funny way. “Tight,” he said. A whine. “I hate it.”

Laurent stood up. He considered extending a hand to Nicaise but quickly discarded the idea. Nicaise did not seem like the type to like hand-holding.

“You never answered my question.”

Nicaise had already started walking. He kept looking back every few steps to see if Laurent was following. “What question?”

“Do you like sweetmeats?”

“I like cake,” Nicaise said, ignoring the question again. “And grapes.”

Laurent said, “I like grapes too.”

*

Laurent didn’t ask about the trial. He dismounted, personally led his mare into the stables, and then marched into his tent. No one approached him or tried to escort him.

Auguste and Damianos had disappeared, taking the Lords with them into Auguste’s tent. When Laurent walked past it, he heard Damianos’s voice raising over what sounded like a myriad of murmurs. Auguste said something, too low for Laurent to hear him, and then there was only quiet.

Once in his tent, Laurent paced. Eventually, he stopped and focused on finding the right clothes and choosing the right plait. He thought of putting on Aimeric’s barrette, but the idea of his uncle recognizing it stopped him.

He washed methodically, as he used to when he was a child. The whole tent smelled like scented oils by the time he was done, but Laurent told himself he did not mind it.

Damianos came looking for him before dinner started, but Laurent was already in bed, the sheets drawn tightly around him to hide the fact that he was fully clothed. Damianos waited for a while, perhaps to see if Laurent was really asleep, and then approached the pallet.

Laurent focused on his breathing, on keeping his eyes closed. He didn’t flinch when Damianos draped a blanket over him. He counted his toes in his head, then his fingers. And waited, and waited, and waited.

Damianos left quietly.

Laurent thought of asking him to stay.

*

Getting his mare out of the stables was surprisingly easy. Laurent had been expecting guards and shouting, but by the time he got there the only man sitting by the door was fast asleep.

In order to keep her quiet, Laurent had to guide his mare carefully through the camp while petting her. If he so much as stopped his stroking, his mare would neigh and start complaining. And Laurent couldn’t afford to get caught.

He held the lit oil lamp in one hand and the reins in the other, trying to make it into the forest without anyone noticing. He’d already dealt with the two guards watching the path, but if someone were to wake up and see him there was no explanation Laurent could give that would satisfy them into silence. They’d tell Auguste.

Laurent only let himself breathe when the trees engulfed him and his mare was trotting down the dirt path. It was dark and the moon wasn’t full, which made riding through the woods a hazardous journey.

The ride to the castle was tense and silent. There were crickets somewhere, a million of them, and even owls. Laurent kept his eyes on the path and his grip on the lamp tight, telling himself the worst was over now.

The gates to the castle were open. When he crossed them, Laurent saw two guards standing on each side. They kept their eyes on the ground, heads bowed. Even in the darkness, Laurent could make out their crimson cloaks.

Once in the courtyard, Laurent dismounted. He stood by his mare for a moment, still stroking her mane, and tied the oil lamp to the saddle. He was almost finished with the knots when he heard footsteps.

“Laurent.”

Laurent let go of the reins. “Uncle,” he said without turning around.

It was quiet for another second. The flame of the lamp flickered and shadows shifted. Laurent stared at the amber fire until his eyes hurt, and then some more. A series of thoughts, unconnected: Auguste in his tent, too trusting and blissfully ignorant. Nicaise on a too-large bed with cards around him, playing to pass the time. Damianos.

A hand closed around Laurent’s elbow, pulling.

“It has been too long,” his uncle said. He examined Laurent’s face, his expression giving nothing away. It had always been like this, a guessing game. Was he displeased? Was he angry? “I’ve missed you so terribly.”

Laurent walked into the hug. He held his breath, too afraid that he’d smell Nicaise’s oils on his uncle’s shirt. He kept his eyes open.

“We shouldn’t talk here,” his uncle said as they separated. “I’ve had a room set up for us. You are…” He kept his eyes on Laurent’s face, never darting down. “It _has_ been long.”

“It has been,” Laurent said, eager to agree.

“Leave your horse here, one of my guards will see to it. Have you had dinner already?”

Laurent let himself be pulled out of the courtyard, past the marble steps. He thought of telling him things, details. _It’s a mare, she was a birthday present_. Instead, “No, I haven’t.”

His uncle paused. They were about to enter the main hall and everything was deadly quiet. Even Laurent’s mare had gone silent.

“I hate to ask this,” his uncle said. His hands were very cold around Laurent’s. “But I must. You know how things are at the moment, how… tense.”

“I know.”

His uncle smiled and Laurent’s mouth curled too. He was pleased now. “Does your brother know you have come here tonight?”

Laurent shook his head, wanting to step closer but not daring to.

“Does the Akielon king know?”

“No one knows. I wanted—” Laurent cut himself off. Was he blabbering? No, he’d been asked a question. Still, the answer should have been _yes_ or _no_. “I’m—”

“I know,” his uncle said easily. He pushed the doors open. “It’s a bit late for dinner, but maybe a cup of wine… Do you still like wine, Laurent?”

At last, this. It felt as though they were the only two people in the castle, in Barbin. In the world. Laurent had waited for this, dreamed of it, for four years. It wasn’t stiff or stilted, as he had been fearing. It was simple, comfortable. It was something to fall back into.

Laurent said, “Yes, Uncle.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello DEARIES, it has been 2 weeks! : ) Life is hell.  
> \- Mirrors were invented in 1835 but I couldn't find another word so... yeah.
> 
> \- [Check out THIS drawing of Smaurent and Nikandros.](https://ancelegance.tumblr.com/post/626713592047239168/fanart-for-the-most-amazing-thickenmybloods) It's so, so, so beautiful! (also the artist is very kind, so... follow them?)
> 
> \- If I haven't replied to your comment yet, it's not because I haven't seen it. It's because I've had no time (kinda ironic considering that I took a week off to write a one-shot that I never posted because it got out of control and now it's 40k words and I—) + if you have ever sent me a nice anon and I haven't replied, it's because I like to hoard compliments so when I feel like shit I have something nice to read :,) 
> 
> -[Check out these memes my friend made for this fic!!!! They're all about how bad Auguste is](https://thickenmyblood.tumblr.com/post/627087176559099904/wtsioa-memes) (you're gonna need some memes to get through the next couple of chapters, just saying.
> 
> \- When will the next chapter be up? I wish I could say next week, but uni is about to start and I don't think I'll be able to finish next chapter by Friday/Saturday. Also, chapters are getting longer and longer and I'm not getting any faster at writing them lmao. Please bear with me!!!!
> 
> Just letting you all know that Lamen (next chapter) will be ..... something else. 
> 
> <3 Love you


	23. Twenty-one

**Twenty-one**

It was the smell that woke him up.

Damianos was dreaming about the stream—fish circling his ankles, sunlight filtering through branches and leaves, a cold hand in his—and then he wasn’t. He came back to himself suddenly, nothing gradual about the way his eyes opened in the dark and his muscles tensed, but he did not say anything. A small part of him whispered that he was still asleep, dreaming.

The tent was dark enough that if this had been anyone else, Damianos would not have known who they were. Dawn hadn’t broken yet and there wouldn’t be a full moon until another two weeks. And yet Damianos knew who was crawling into his bed, pressing against him and around him and everywhere all at once. He didn’t need lit candles or oil lamps to know it was Laurent.

Damianos said, “You smell like wine.”

Laurent sighed into the crook of Damianos’s neck. He might have mumbled something, but Damianos could not make out the words.

It would have been easy, scaringly so, to hold Laurent back and drift off to sleep again. In the morning, neither of them would mention it, just like they never mentioned anything that happened inside Damianos’s tent. It would have been easy, and if Damianos had loved Laurent a little less, he might have been able to do it.

Damianos slowly pushed him away, feeling Laurent’s cold fingertips digging into the skin of his arms as he tried to hold on. To distract him into letting go, Damianos started brushing Laurent’s hair away from his face.

“Are you drunk?” Damianos asked. Laurent’s forehead felt damp, but not hot. He didn’t have a fever. “Laurent?”

“No,” Laurent said. The word came out clear, unslurred. Then, “Go back to sleep.”

“Trust you to find a way around the men guarding the barrels,” Damianos said. He’d wanted to sound amused, and failed. Laurent didn’t drink, ever. He didn’t even like wine. “How much did you have?”

Laurent didn’t answer. He lay down next to Damianos instead of on top of him, and simply breathed.

Damianos lay back down, trying to put some distance between their bodies, and listened to Laurent’s breathing. It was calm, measured. It reminded Damianos of the sea, the way it came and went.

“Next time,” Damianos said into the darkness, “you should drink less. Or more slowly. Your head will hurt tomorrow.”

Laurent shifted beside him, rolling over his side so he could look at Damianos. They couldn’t see each other’s faces, but Damianos knew Laurent was looking at him. He could feel it.

“I know,” Laurent said. His breath hit Damianos’s cheek, the smell sickeningly sweet. Like honeyed grapes. “It starts at the temples.” He pressed two fingertips to the side of Damianos’s head. “And then it spreads to the back.”

Damianos caught Laurent’s wrist, just before Laurent could get to the nape of his neck. Under his thumb, Damianos could feel Laurent’s pulse, throbbing and angry. It was the complete opposite of the way he drew breaths in and out.

“How many cups did you have?”

Laurent twisted his arm so Damianos had to let go of his wrist. “One,” he said as he pressed his face into the pillow. His next words were intelligible. After a long pause, he added, “Go to sleep.”

“You need to drink some water,” Damianos said, disentangling himself from the sheets. He knew his way around the tent and had no trouble finding the pitcher and cup next to his pallet. “Sit up.”

Surprisingly, Laurent complied. When Damianos came back to the bed, he found Laurent sitting up over the covers, watching him.

Pouring the water into the cup proved to be a problem, for Damianos could not see what he was doing. The cup overflowed, water dripping into the mattress and Damianos’s thighs, and so Damianos took a long sip before handing the cup to Laurent. Their hands met around the stem, briefly, and then Laurent’s cold fingers disappeared, taking the cup with them.

“What were you celebrating?”

“Celebrating?” Laurent said. The wet sound of his throat working. “Nothing.”

Damianos heard the sound of the cup being put down on the floor. He felt Laurent’s hands on his knees and was unable to think for a moment. Laurent’s palms were hot and clammy, yet his fingers were cold and dry. Neither of them moved for a while, sitting face to face in the dark.

“I thought you were mad at Lazar,” Damianos said. “Did you get him drunk just so he’d—”

“I haven’t talked to Lazar today.”

Laurent was closer now, dangerously so. On his haunches, maybe, with his hands on Damianos’s knees to keep himself steady as he leaned forward. There was another smell, different from the wine Damianos had breathed in earlier. It was sweeter, more floral. It was something Damianos had smelled before somewhere. 

Unable to let things rest, Damianos said, “Did you simply wake up in the middle of the night and decide you were thirsty for Lord Peire’s bitter wine?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“You don’t,” Damianos said.

The realization that it was true hurt more than he had anticipated.

He pushed Laurent’s hands away from his knees, lying back down on the pallet with the disappointing knowledge that he’d have to sleep on the floor again tonight.

After a moment of silence, Laurent lay down next to him. They were not touching, simply lying side by side on the thin mattress. Then, Laurent’s icy toes touched Damianos’s calf, making him hiss. There was a snort—was it laughter?—and Laurent was suddenly plastered against Damianos’s side, feet tucked between Damianos’s legs. He was everywhere all at once: his right cheek on Damianos’s chest, strands of loose hair tickling Damianos’s nose, a hand curled over Damianos’s scarred stomach.

“If you fall asleep like this,” Damianos said, “you’ll wake up when I move.”

“Why would you move?”

Damianos was suddenly very, very tired. “You know why, Laurent.”

The wine might have loosened Laurent’s limbs, made him slightly more pliant, but it had done nothing for his stubbornness. “No,” he said. “I don’t.”

“It’d be inappropriate.”

“Why?”

Damianos felt the weight of the question in his stomach as though Laurent had just stabbed him with a knife. There were so many things he wanted to say, yet none of them seemed right enough.

Was what they’d been doing appropriate? Laurent had fallen asleep in his arms more than once since they’d arrived here. Laurent had laughed against his neck at dirty jokes. They had held hands. Damianos was holding him right now, in a dark tent with no witnesses, not an inch of space between their bodies.

Belatedly, Damianos realized that it wasn’t. It was neither appropriate nor honorable, for they had done this behind Auguste’s back, behind the Lords’, behind everyone’s.

“Because men do not do this,” Damianos said. A half-truth. “Princes and Kings certainly don’t.”

Laurent’s hand moved from Damianos’s stomach to his jaw, touching its hinges. He said, “Kings can do as they please.”

“In their own kingdoms maybe. But I’m an Akielon in a Veretian camp. I promise you, I can’t do as I please.”

“But if you could,” Laurent asked against his shirt, “what would you do?”

 _I would kiss you_ , Damianos thought, _I would ask your brother for permission to court you_.

The thought should have startled him and didn’t. How long had this feeling been inside him, waiting to be named, to be acknowledged? He had known even when he hadn’t. At the palace in Arles. At Chastillon. Here, in this tent, but also by the stream and in the blood-red gardens.

It had been gradual, maybe. Stubborn and steady for sure. Damianos had never stood a chance against it, against Laurent.

“I would not keep secrets from your brother,” Damianos said because it felt like the closest thing to the truth he could say out loud. “I would honor our friendship.”

Laurent pulled his hand away from Damianos’s jaw to touch the juncture between shoulder and neck. The dark made him tender, this Damianos knew. It was one of the only things about Laurent that hadn’t changed over the years.

“You have only lied to him once,” Laurent said, “under my orders.”

But Damianos did not want to talk about Auguste. He wanted to focus on Laurent’s hands, on his breathing. He wanted the sun to never rise again if it meant he got to spend this night with Laurent’s body against his.

“What would you do,” Damianos said, “if you could do anything?”

“I would beat Nicaise at cards.”

Damianos wanted to laugh. “Is he good at that?”

“Yes, he—” Laurent stopped. When he spoke again, his voice was steadier. “He’s better than me.”

Damianos moved his hand from Laurent’s back to his head, tracing the small and complicated plaits in his hair. He felt Laurent lean into the touch like a flower leaning into the sunlight.

“You like him,” Damianos said, still running his fingers through Laurent’s hair, messing up the braids. “But I don’t understand why.”

“I don’t like him.”

 _I do not have friends_.

Slowly, Damianos said, “I think you do. You like him enough to overlook his disrespect, for one. And you gave him Dion’s dice.”

Time passed. Damianos struggled to keep his eyes open, one hand on Laurent’s warm back and the other tangled in his hair. It would have been easy to fall asleep like this, but Damianos couldn’t allow himself that pleasure. He had to move.

And then Laurent said, “I wish I hadn’t.”

Damianos hummed in response, fighting off sleep as best as he could. “You have never liked to share,” he said eventually. “I don’t know why you did it. His family seems more than rich enough to afford any dice in Vere.”

Laurent stilled in his arms. His hand, which had been drawing circles on Damianos’s throat, stopped moving abruptly as though stung by something. The movement was like a jerk. After, a frozen stillness spread through Laurent’s entire body.

“His family,” Laurent said, not quite a question.

Damianos tried to rub the stiffness away from Laurent’s back. “His father must be one of the southern Lords.” There was silence. Then, because Damianos felt the sudden urge to explain himself, he added, “The jewelry he wears is too expensive. Rubies are a sign of royalty in your country, I believe. Isn’t your brother’s crown—”

“Damianos,” Laurent said. His fingers were yet to thaw. “He has no family.”

“Is he some sort of ward, then?”

“No.”

Damianos waited for Laurent to elaborate, but the silence seemed to stretch on and on between them, swelling with Damianos’s unasked questions and Laurent’s hoarded answers. No matter how tenderly Damianos moved his hand, Laurent’s back remained rigid, and after a while, Damianos stopped trying to get him to relax again.

It took Damianos a few more minutes to understand Laurent was waiting.

“He doesn’t look like a stable boy,” Damianos said. He thought of Nicaise’s wide blue eyes, the jewels in his hair. He could not picture the boy shoveling hay or kneeling on the dirt. “Is he some sort of jester?”

“No,” Laurent said again.

Damianos brushed his thumb over the spot on Laurent’s neck where his spine started. He took his time trying to solve the riddle, a small part of him enjoying the game, but the answers stayed away.

“He’s young,” Damianos said. “Perhaps he’s an apprentice.”

“Perhaps.”

A moment of pure quiet. Laurent shifted in his arms, facing away from him. His back felt bony against Damianos’s chest, bird-like. When Laurent drew in a breath, Damianos felt his shoulder blades moving, his spine curving.

“I don’t know what came over me when I said he might be a jester.”

Laurent said nothing.

Still, Damianos tried again: “He’s always scowling. I doubt he could make anyone laugh.”

“He makes me laugh,” Laurent said. He’d sounded strangely vulnerable. Then, he added, “You laugh at Lazar’s stupid jokes.”

“And?”

“You have no taste.”

Damianos tried not to laugh at that. “I wasn’t attacking him. There’s no need to grow defensive.”

Laurent punished him by tucking his cold feet between Damianos’s legs again. He let out a snort when Damianos complained against his nape.

When they’d settled again, Damianos said, “What does he do?”

“Who?”

“Nicaise. He’s not a stable boy or a jester. Do you know what he does for a living?”

Laurent was quiet. A small pause followed, during which Damianos draped the blanket over their bodies. It was warm, but Laurent’s toes were so cold Damianos could not help but wonder if Veretians had any sort of body heat. Perhaps they had more in common with reptiles than Damianos had originally thought.

“It’s late,” Laurent said. “Stop talking.”

Damianos wanted to argue but didn’t. He busied himself by carding his fingers through Laurent’s hair. The angle was awkward, one of his arms was being smothered under Laurent’s weight, but he managed.

When the first rays of sun hit the tent, lighting it up from the outside, Damianos was yet to close his eyes. His aching wrist ached, but he felt renewed in some way he could not explain.

He thought: _Today I will ask Auguste_.

*

Damianos didn’t think of announcing his presence before slipping into Auguste’s tent. He knew that if he stopped to think he wouldn’t go through with this, and so he charged forward and past the tent flaps, trying to summon all the courage he had in him.

Auguste lifted his head when he heard him come in. He was getting dressed, slipping a pair of pants over his milky thighs. The rest of him was naked and pale, except for a patch of uneven skin, pink and red like a rash, on his chest.

Damianos averted his eyes, but it was too late, for Auguste had caught him looking.

“It took weeks to heal,” Auguste said casually like he was not talking about a wound that could have cost him his life. His fingers looked paler than usual against the pink patch of scarred skin. From a certain angle, it looked like a starburst. “I remember wishing it would heal slower. Doesn’t that give away my selfishness?”

“Vere has never been easy to rule,” Damianos said. Auguste looked so much older than he had back then, at the beach in Ios. “It only makes sense that you wanted a few more weeks of bed rest.”

Auguste smiled. “Yes, but that’s not the reason.” He gave the laces on his boots a sharp tug. “Laurent refused to leave my rooms while I was healing. He was convinced there were traitors lurking around.”

Damianos couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. “And did he think he’d be able to protect you from them?”

“He kept a butter knife on him at all times. I never had the courage to tell him he would never be able to cut a man with it.”

Auguste slipped on a shirt. There was a vest waiting for him on the pallet, but he ignored it. His fingers moved quickly over the laces and then busied themselves with his belt. He was dressed in a matter of seconds.

Unprompted, Auguste went on talking. “He’d rub ointment into the wound following Paschal’s instructions and then complain for hours about the smell it left on his fingers. He’d sip my broth when I wasn’t looking.” A pause. “I suppose I shouldn’t have let him do that.”

The question hung between them, thick and swelling.

“He was checking for poison, I think,” Auguste said at last. “I didn’t realize until much later.”

Damianos, who didn’t want to talk about thirteen-year-old Laurent anymore but was still trying to find the right words to say when it came to eighteen-year-old Laurent, said, “You mentioned something. At the trial.” He waited for Auguste’s question, but it never came. “Something about poisoned pets?”

Auguste made his way to the table. There was only a jug of water and what looked like bread from the night before, yet Auguste did not yell for the guards to bring them breakfast. Perhaps he thought it was too early, or perhaps, like Damianos, he wasn’t hungry.

When he sat down, Damianos copied him.

As he poured a cup of water, Auguste said, “Paint was very popular amongst pets a couple of years ago. In Arles, golden paint was a sign of status and wealth. Even more than jewelry.”

Damianos frowned. “I don’t remember—”

“I banned it before you and your family came to visit.”

“Why?”

“When the spear didn’t work, my uncle got creative. The skin absorbs things, did you know that? He had the paint poisoned in hopes that I would…” Auguste broke off, taking a long sip of water. “It didn’t work, of course. But it did kill some young men.”

“Is that why you haven’t taken a lover in four years?”

Auguste’s laughter was not heard often these days. Damianos had almost forgotten what he looked like when he laughed, his whole body shaking with it like an open invitation to join him. Laurent had laughed like that once, too.

“I’m honored you think so highly of my self-restraint,” Auguste said. He had to press his knuckles to his mouth to keep from laughing again. “Four years, Damianos? Is that how long it’s been for you?”

Without meaning to, Damianos smiled. He found he was on the verge of laughing too. “You can’t blame me for assuming things. In your letters, you never mentioned—”

“Neither did you, but I remember your eagerness when you came to Arles for the first time. The pets were certainly sad to see you go.”

Was this how it should have been between him and Kastor? The playful banter of brotherhood, the teasing smiles. Damianos felt his chest ache with the loss of all that had never been and all that could never be.

Was he about to lose this as well?

“It was easier back then,” Damianos said. He ran a hand over the wood, a splinter punishing him for the caress. He thought of Laurent and the rose thorns. “Now…”

“I know,” Auguste said. “I’m a King as well, no matter how much my kingdom has shrunk.”

The joke was too bittersweet to be funny, and it changed the mood of the conversation. Damianos knew Auguste did not want to talk about the trial, not after what had happened, but the lack of sleep made Damianos carelessly selfish.

Damianos’s hand found Auguste’s over the table. “I know how important my testimony was for you.”

Auguste didn’t pull away from the touch. Staring into Damianos’s eyes, he said, “It was, but I suppose some things cannot be helped. If this is your way of offering an apology, I decline it. Vehemently.” He put his other hand on top of Damianos’s. “You told the truth. What more could I have asked of you? After everything you’ve done for me, how could I hold Veretian prejudice against you?”

 _An Akielon cannot be trusted_ , Lord Touars had said. Damianos shuddered to think he might have been right.

Suddenly, the touch of Auguste’s hands seemed to burn. Damianos felt his guilt manifesting, his skin growing hot and tight as though someone was pulling at it, stretching it past the point of no return. Soon it would rip, leaving him open and bleeding.

“What else do you have planned? There must be another way to win this.”

“Paschal and Aimeric will join us today,” Auguste said calmly. “If their testimonies aren’t enough, then I’ll…”

Damianos waited for him to finish, to explain further, but there was only silence. And then he understood what Auguste was not saying.

“You’ll come with me and Laurent,” Damianos said. “I won’t leave you behind to die like a dog.”

Auguste retrieved his hands. “You know why I can’t do that.”

“Because you swore an oath? Your reputation would suffer, but you’d be alive. In Akielos, as long as I’m the King, you’d want for nothing.”

Was he begging? Damianos could not be sure. He had never begged before in his life.

“And live in exile for the rest of my life, away from my people? No. I’d rather—” Auguste cut himself off. He offered Damianos a tired smile. “I told you I didn’t want to discuss these matters with you. This is why.”

“Auguste.”

But Auguste ignored him. “It’s not me you should worry about. If I were you, I’d be careful with my brother.”

“I,” Damianos said. No other word wanted to leave his throat. _He knows_. “Careful?”

Auguste’s face was weary. For the first time since he’d walked in, Damianos wondered why Auguste was up so early. Had he not slept at all?

“Don’t let him fool you,” Auguste said. It was hard to believe he was talking about Laurent so coolly when before he had smiled and laughed at the memories of his brother. “I know you two are close, but you should know his loyalties lie somewhere else. When you have to leave do not take any chances. Bind him with ropes if you must, but don’t let him stay here with my uncle. That’s exactly what he wants.”

“His loyalties are here with you. You _know_ that.”

Auguste’s smile was back. It had become a wry little thing. “Do I? You heard him yesterday.”

So had the whole camp. The incident outside of Paschal’s tent was still something the guards whispered about. Pallas had told Damianos how he’d heard murmurs in the tents. And laughter, which was more dangerous than rumors. If a king could be laughed at…

Damianos said, “He’s jealous of Aimeric, that is all. You ought to control your temper better, too.”

“Ah, your Akielon honesty never fails to amaze me. Are you not scared I’ll whip you to death?”

It was not the whip that scared Damianos, but Auguste’s anger. He knew, rationally, that Auguste could not harm him. The peace treaty would stand between them like a shield, something too important to ruin in the heat of a moment, but sometimes Damianos could not help but wonder if the dam would be strong enough to hold back all of Auguste’s rage.

 _I want to court Laurent_ , Damianos imagined himself saying. Auguste would smile and give his blessing, because they were friends, because he knew Damianos would never hurt Laurent.

But how could Damianos ask this of him now? How could he be so selfish as to create yet another distraction, another problem? _You’re my only friend_ , Auguste had told him.

“Of course not,” Damianos said. “You need me too much.”

Auguste splayed his hands on the table. They were very pale except for a few blotches of pink—his knuckles, for example, were rosy—and they looked even paler in contrast to the dark wood they were resting on. He wasn’t wearing any rings.

“I’m not asking you to pick between the two of us,” Auguste said. He sounded weary, and whatever playfulness had been between them was now fading. “I can only imagine the sort of things Laurent has told you about me to try and get you on his side, but you should know that everything I’ve done has been to keep him safe.”

“He’s never spoken ill of you,” Damianos said, knowing it wasn’t true. How many times had he heard Laurent call his brother a fool? “I don’t know what the feud between you two is about, but you’re wrong about him. He wants you to win.”

Auguste’s eyes were on him, cold and assessing. He’d gone from laughing to this, and Damianos could not help but miss his warm smile, his colorful laughter. Auguste was like Kastor in more ways than one, but especially in this one. There were only two sides of him, always. Cold as ice or warm as unfiltered sunlight.

“Is that what he’s told you?”

Damianos said, firmly, “Yes.”

“And you believe him.”

Since it wasn’t a question, Damianos did not answer.

“Let me guess. He asked you to trust him, shared some dusty secrets with you, made you think you were in his confidence.” Auguste’s eyes never left his face. If anything, they seemed to bore deeper into it, as though digging for something. “That’s what he does, Damianos.”

“Stop.”

Auguste said, “He’s sweet when he wants something from you. He’s kind when he knows you’re looking.”

“I said _stop_.”

“Do you have any idea what it was like when we returned to Arles? What _he_ was like?” Auguste ran his thumb over the edge of his cup. “He had everyone wrapped around his finger. He smiled a lot, played chess with me. He was even polite to Aimeric, and I thought his time in Akielos had made him better, that he had…” A pause. Auguste shook his head. “Then I caught him in the stables one night, trying to run away.”

Damianos did not bother telling him to stop again.

“Don’t let him fool you. He doesn’t care about you, or me, or anyone. He doesn’t even care about himself.”

“You’re wrong,” Damianos said, and this time his voice carried. He did not remember getting to his feet, but there he was, standing by the table. “You said it yourself. He stayed in your rooms for weeks when you were hurt, he wanted to come here so he could help you, he—”

“I know my brother better than you do,” Auguste said. “He’s not the boy that left Ios four years ago. Are you sure you want to lecture me on what he’s like?”

They were both standing. The table between them felt like a barrier, but Damianos did not know which one of them it was holding back.

“I don’t want to argue with you,” Auguste said, sitting down again. He drank more water and rubbed his face as if trying to wake himself up. “I’m only trying to warn you.”

“I don’t need your warnings.”

“Oh, but you do, Damianos. He studied the maps with you, didn’t he? I bet he traced the escape route himself while you watched. I bet he picked—”

“Auguste.”

“—the forest bordering the castle over the safe, open field. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”

Damianos pushed the doubts away, as far as they would go. He’d worry about them later without Auguste watching his every move.

“It tells me that you don’t trust him, yet you expect him to trust your every decision without question,” Damianos said, the words coming out of his mouth like arrows. He watched Auguste meet them head-on with a blank expression. “He was a boy when your uncle left. I bet whatever memories he has of him are pleasant enough to overlook—”

“Pleasant,” Auguste said.

Still, Damianos did not relent, ignoring the edge in Auguste’s voice. “Laurent told me at Chastillon your uncle used to take him there during the war, to keep his mind off things. They were close, Auguste. If you wanted undying loyalty from your brother, you shouldn’t have spent the last four years pushing him away from you and towards your uncle.”

Auguste’s face was blank and pale and awful. After a long pause, he said, “What does it matter how Laurent feels about my uncle if you’re so certain that he’s loyal to me?”

Anger filled Damianos from head to toe. He thought he would overflow with it. “Are you even listening to what I’m saying?”

“Yes,” Auguste said calmly. He seemed to have regained his composure, face still blank but not as pale. “I’ve listened to you. And unless there’s a reason why you’re here, I’m now asking you to leave.”

 _I’m not Laurent_ , Damianos almost said, _you can’t treat me like this_. It was on the tip of his tongue, cramping it.

Instead, “If you’re so convinced Laurent’s a traitor, why drag me along into this? Why ask me to keep him safe, to take him away from here?”

“Because I love him,” Auguste said. “I would have thought you out of all people would understand what it’s like, between brothers. Wouldn’t you have done the same for Kastor?”

It hurt. This wasn’t Laurent, half-blind with anger, and trying to be cruel. Auguste’s calm was somehow worse, for it made Damianos pause to listen. With Laurent, it was easy to dismiss his jabs because Damianos knew he did not mean them. With Laurent, Damianos would have known what to say.

“Go, Damianos,” Auguste said. “What will be discussed today at the trial doesn’t concern you. Perhaps you should stay behind and get some sleep.”

Damianos felt like a dog following orders as he made his way to the entrance of the tent. He thought: _None of this concerns me, and yet here I am_. He would go to the trial if anything out of spite.

The sun was completely out. Damianos stood by Auguste’s tent for a whole minute, staring up at it until his vision felt ruined by its light. His feet took him away, towards the wine barrels and the food crates.

He tried, in vain, to find the sort of berries Laurent had brought to him the day before. There were no pears or figs or apples, and so Damianos made his way back to his tent empty-handed and annoyed. He kept glancing around, hoping to spot Pallas so he could ask him where the Veretians kept their fruit, but Pallas was nowhere to be seen.

Laurent was sitting cross-legged on the pallet when Damianos walked in. His hair was a mess of half-done braids and tiny knots, his face just as blank as Auguste’s had been. He hadn’t dressed and was staring intently at the undone laces of his undershirt.

Damianos approached him in silence, wondering if Laurent had a headache, if he was hungry, if he regretted coming here.

“It’s early,” Damianos said, trying to keep his voice low. “You can sleep for a few more hours.”

Laurent didn’t look up at him, didn’t say anything.

“Does your head hurt?”

Again, silence.

Damianos touched Laurent’s shoulder, expecting him to startle, but nothing happened. He then sat down next to Laurent on the pallet and brushed some tangled hair out of his eyes. It was so quiet inside the tent Damianos could hear his own breathing.

“Laurent?”

Damianos had thought this was the sort of thing Laurent had left behind in his childhood, the sort of thing he’d simply outgrown. But it was clear now that Laurent wasn’t listening to him and that he wasn’t, as Damianos had thought upon entering the tent, looking at his laces. He probably didn’t even see them.

Damianos didn’t have any salts on him, hadn’t thought of them in years. He barely had time to feel the panic rise in him before his mind turned sharp and focused, and before solutions rather than questions started to flow from him. He couldn’t run to Auguste now, for he could not explain why Laurent had slept in his tent. He couldn’t turn to anyone because no one knew Laurent was here.

He started untangling Laurent’s hair with his fingers. Some knots were too small, but most of them gave in as soon as Damianos tugged on them.

Getting Laurent to lie down again was a hassle, mainly because his body was stiff and he would not cooperate, but eventually, Damianos managed it, pulling at the wool blanket so it went up to Laurent’s waist.

Slowly, Laurent came back to himself. It was different from what Damianos remembered. As a boy, Laurent had simply jerked awake, suddenly and quickly. Now he lay there, blinking at the tent ceiling, his eyelids moving with heavy laziness that had Damianos on the edge of the mattress.

“Hello,” Damianos said, tracing Laurent’s cheekbone with his thumb.

It took Laurent a moment to focus on him. “Hello.” A frown, small and frustrated. “Did I miss the trial?”

“No. Half the camp is still sleeping.”

Damianos tried to retrieve his hand, but Laurent curled his fingers around his wrist, keeping it in place.

Laurent’s mouth opened and closed. It turned into a pursed pink dot, mirroring his frown. Finally, he said, “Where were you?”

“With Auguste,” Damianos said. He tried—and probably failed—to keep his expression as blank as possible. “He’s in a foul mood today.”

“When is he not?”

Damianos smiled. It felt forced. “Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you up later.”

“I wasn’t,” Laurent said, and paused. Then, “Sleeping.”

“I know.”

“It hasn’t happened in a while,” Laurent said. He tilted his face a bit, pressing his cheek against Damianos’s palm. “What did you talk about with Auguste?”

Damianos thought of lying. And then he remembered how awful he was at it and how good Laurent was at reading him. He said, “You.”

Laurent’s grip on Damianos’s wrist tightened, the cold pads of his fingers were digging into Damianos’s skin as if wanting to leave a bruise.

“Did you tell him I’d been drinking?”

“No,” Damianos said. He could not explain why, but he knew Auguste would not have been happy to hear about that. “Aren’t you tired? Lie down, I promise I’ll wake you up when Auguste decides it’s time to leave.”

But Laurent ignored him. He sat up slowly on the pallet, accidentally letting go of Damianos’s wrist in the process.

“I tried to bring you breakfast.”

“Tried?” Laurent asked, almost smiling.

There was so much Damianos wanted to ask him. About the wine, about everything Auguste had said, about what it meant that Laurent was here with him instead of in his own tent. About Nicaise, too.

“What were you dreaming about?”

The question caught them both off guard. It wasn’t what Damianos had meant to ask, and yet the words had left his mouth easily, without any effort.

Laurent didn’t have enough time to suppress the surprise that flashed across his face.

“A summer day,” Laurent said slowly. Damianos could see him forcing out the words, one by one, as though each one hurt his mouth. “In Arles.”

Laurent lay down again against Damianos’s pillows. He didn’t need to be coaxed this time, allowing Damianos to drape the wool blanket over him.

“It was during the war,” Laurent said. “There was—wine. The sweet kind, from the south.”

“I thought you didn’t like wine.”

“I.” A long, stretched out pause. Laurent’s eyes on him felt like two blue arrows, piercing. “I didn’t.” Another pause. Laurent looked away. “I don’t.”

Damianos knew this was the most he’d get out of Laurent right now. He’d learned not to push, not to pry. The war had been exciting for him, the opportunity to sit beside his father in council meetings and prove himself in military strategy. He hadn’t known about Kastor back then, hadn’t felt the gap between them widening and deepening. He’d been happy.

It was hard to remember sometimes that it had not been the same way for Laurent.

“I’ll be back in a while,” Damianos said, standing up. The pallet creaked.

Laurent had already closed his eyes. He shifted, burying his face into a pillow. Muffled: “With breakfast?”

“With breakfast.”

*

Damianos put the bowl down on the bed. It was filled with cherries, their stems so green they reminded him of the treetops outside.

Laurent’s face was still pressed into the pillow, which made Damianos pause to wonder how exactly he was managing to breathe. The bed was a mess of rumpled sheets. The wool blanket was twisted around Laurent’s legs, but Damianos did not bother trying to fix it. It was a warm day.

He thought of waking Laurent and couldn’t. He told himself it was because Laurent had looked tired, and not because Aimeric would be at the trial today.

*

There was a chair in the middle of the room, facing the Lords. Paschal sat in it, wearing what Damianos was sure were his best clothes. Still, he looked closer to a beggar than a physician, and by the looks Lord Guillaume kept giving him it was obvious the Lords noticed it. He’d shaved, which made him look a bit younger but also gave away the sharp edges of his cheekbones.

“I was King Aleron’s physician for ten years,” Paschal said, answering Lord Jehan’s question. “I treated all members of the royal family and some of the courtiers as well. When Queen Hennike fell ill, the first time, I assisted her.”

Lord Guillaume said, “What were you a witness of?”

Damianos stared at the back of Paschal’s neck, the only part of his skin that was visible. It went from a blushing red to a sickly pale color in the span of a moment.

Paschal said, “I was there when King Auguste was wounded. I treated the injury and examined Orlant’s body.”

“Orlant?” Lord Touars asked.

“He was the man some of the guards accused of throwing the spear,” Paschal said. It was hard to tell if he was nervous, for Damianos couldn’t see his face. Were his hands shaking? Was he frowning? “He was poisoned.”

“Do you need a moment, old man?” Lord Peire asked Lord Touars. “This was discussed two days ago.”

Looking at Paschal, Lord Jasque said, “Is that all?”

Auguste tensed next to Damianos. He was clenching his hands so tightly the muscles of his arm grew rigid. Aimeric, who was sitting on the other side of Auguste, was quiet as a mouse.

“After King Aleron died,” Paschal said, “I continued to treat what was left of the royal family. I ministered to King Auguste’s household. I—” He cut himself off. “No, that isn’t right. Before the war with Akielos started, before King Aleron and Queen Hennike died, I was instructed to take care of some of the pets.”

“Under whose orders?”

“King Aleron’s brother’s.”

Lord Rolant, who had been silent ever since the trial had started, leaned forward in his seat and said, “That isn’t unusual at all. Since when is it a crime to have a contract with a pet?”

“These weren’t—” Paschal cut himself off again. He shifted in his chair as if trying to get comfortable. To Damianos, he looked like a squirming child being told off. “They were fairly young.”

“How young?” Lord Peire asked.

“Young,” Paschal said firmly. “They were children without families.”

Disinterested, Lord Touars said, “That only speaks of a man’s taste, not of his crimes.”

A long silence followed.

Disgust. It was clear and unwaveringly acrid, and it filled Damianos’s entire body. He wanted to turn and see what Auguste’s face looked like, if he was experiencing the same emotion he was, but Damianos was afraid he wouldn’t be able to control his own mouth. This wasn’t the place, nor the time.

“During the war, he came to me with a request,” Paschal said. “King Auguste was away, trying to secure the border in the south. The Prince was too young, and so he’d been left in charge of the palace.”

None of the Lords interrupted Paschal this time. They looked like children to Damianos, gathered around a bard while he told them a story. Even Lord Touars, always ready and eager to make a fool of himself, kept quiet.

“He told me a new boy would come to see me that night, and that I was not to tell anyone about it, especially not the boy’s mother.” Here Paschal hesitated. He let out a stuttered breath. “I was confused by this because most pets at the palace had no family. But when the boy came to the infirmary later that day, I understood.”

“Understood what, exactly?” Lord Guillaume asked. He was frowning, probably thinking he’d missed something.

Paschal said, “The boy wasn’t a pet. He was Councilor Guion’s youngest son.”

Even if he’d wanted to, Damianos could not have turned to look at Auguste now. His body would not have answered to him.

“A highborn boy,” Lord Rolant said.

“Guion,” Lord Peire said. “Wasn’t that the name of one of the Traitorous Ten?”

“I see no crime,” Lord Touars said. “No crime at all. Some boys are precocious. What was his age, anyway?”

Lord Jasque said, “ _Silence_.” Then, to Paschal, “Was the boy badly injured?”

“No, but—”

“What did he say to you while you… tended to him?”

“Nothing,” Paschal answered. “He was calm, unnaturally so. I believe he had been given wine. Maybe even chalis.”

Wine.

Even though no one had asked him another question, Paschal went on talking. “The next morning, I woke up to a small feast. Guion had been granted the right to stay at the palace instead of going back to Fortaine with his family. He was to join King Auguste’s private Council, and the news was being celebrated.”

“I still see no crime,” Lord Touars said.

“Corruption,” Lord Peire said. “That is the crime, you buffoon. A position in the royal Council bought with…” He paused, tilting his head. “A highborn boy.”

“Speculation,” Lord Rolant said. “There are no facts. Where is the proof of this? The man in question is dead, executed by the false King. How convenient.”

“It seems unlikely that these events were unrelated,” Lord Peire argued. “The King—”

“Which one?” Lord Jehan said.

They had started to bicker, straying away from Paschal’s testimony.

“May I ask this man a few questions?”

Damianos turned to the voice. Auguste’s uncle was sitting on the opposite side of the room, guarded by Govart. He looked calm, as if all the things he was being accused of were unimportant or simply untrue. He spoke with a lazy drawl and, although his posture was impeccable, he gave the impression of being perfectly relaxed.

He did not wait for their approval, and said, “Paschal, are you still my nephew’s physician?”

“No.”

“Did you resign?”

“No. I was—asked to leave.”

“Leave the palace?”

“No. I had to leave my position but stay at the palace.”

“But why would my nephew keep you by his side if you were no longer his physician? Were you assigned other tasks?”

“No,” Paschal said. “I wasn’t.”

“Four years of simply lounging around in the palace without any sickness to tend to, no wounds to treat.”

Paschal said nothing.

“Isn’t that suspicious? Isn’t this man a hostage, rather than a witness?”

Auguste said, “Paschal is here because he’s aware of the crimes he committed and he wants to atone for them.”

“What crimes?” His uncle asked, and his voice was almost soft. “He was a physician until you decided otherwise. If he treated Councilor Guion’s son, it was because that was his job.”

“Paschal should have told me that he suspected of your deal with Guion. He kept quiet, and so he is a traitor. I was merciful by allowing him to live. Had he told me, I would have stopped—” Auguste went quiet as if an invisible hand had been put over his mouth. After a second, he said, “You.”

Into the uncomfortable silence, Lord Rolant said, pointing a gnarled finger in their direction, “Is that the boy?”

“Yes,” Auguste said. “And he will testify today, too.”

“Come forward,” Lord Touars commanded. “Take the physician’s place.”

Paschal stood. There was a pause during which no one spoke, and the only sound that could be heard was the shuffling of feet as Aimeric dragged himself from the bench he’d been sitting on to the chair Paschal had just vacated.

Before Aimeric could even state his name, Auguste’s uncle said, “My nephew calls himself merciful, but is this young man’s face the work of someone who knows mercy?”

Damianos couldn’t see Aimeric’s face, but he had stared at it enough on the ride here to have his bruises and cuts memorized. There were swelling and black-threaded stitches. There were scabs.

“The boy is being coerced,” Lord Touars said. “He has been battered into submission.”

“And his family is from Fortaine,” Lord Jehan said. “He’s one of us, a southerner.”

Lord Peire said, “He’s spent years as a ward to the King. Perhaps he has seen the error of his father’s ways. Tell us, boy. Who lay hands on you?”

“His word cannot be trusted. He is being forced to speak!”

“Says who?” Lord Guillaume asked.

“Reason,” Lord Rolant answered. “Even a blind man could see it. His face is proof enough.”

Auguste’s words cut through theirs. “Tell the truth, Aimeric. You have nothing to fear if you do.”

“An open threat,” Lord Touars said, staring at Auguste. “I will not listen to this boy’s lies.”

“If you don’t,” Auguste said, staring right back, “I will have your head. Do you dare deny me this, in my own kingdom? You inhabit my lands and you breathe at my pleasure. Make your own choice, Lord Touars, but know what will come out of it.”

Lord Touars recoiled, but still managed to say, “This isn’t your—”

“This is Vere,” Auguste said. “I am the King. Or have the Lords stripped me of my title already? Is this trial nothing but a staged farce?”

The Lords settled down again. Lord Touars carefully kept his eyes on Aimeric.

“Did you live at the palace in Arles during the war?”

“Yes,” Aimeric said. He spoke with a slight lisp because of his chipped tooth.

“Did you know of your father’s treason?”

“Of his _alleged_ deal with the King,” Lord Rolant corrected Lord Peire.

“The King’s _uncle_ ,” Lord Peire snapped back.

Quietly, Aimeric said, “No.”

“Did your father ask you to do something you found distasteful? Something that could have earned him a place in King Auguste’s council?”

“It wasn’t,” Aimeric said, and paused. “Distasteful.”

“See?” Lord Touars said. “He didn’t find it distasteful.”

“We aren’t here to discuss what the boy’s preferences are,” Lord Jehan said. Even though he was supposed to be on Lord Touars’s side, it was obvious he could not stand the man. “We are here to discuss treason and corruption.”

“But surely your father must have said something to you.”

Aimeric tilted his head to the side. The curls on the back of his head bounced with the movement. “He was pleased with me. He said…”

“He said…?”

“He told me the King’s uncle had noticed me at dinner one night,” Aimeric said, squirming and trying not to. “And that it was an honor.”

“Did _you_ get something out of it? A political favor of some kind, perhaps?”

“I was twelve,” Aimeric said in a flat voice.

Lord Peire said, “A toy, then.”

“Gold, perhaps?” Lord Rolant asked. “It does not matter anyway. If the boy was willing and the deal between the King and the alleged traitor cannot be proved, then—”

Again: “The King’s _uncle_.”

“He gave me an earring,” Aimeric said. He moved, not without effort, in the chair. A second later he was holding something up between his fingers, blue and shiny and beautiful. The Lords could not tear their eyes away. “He said pretty boys deserved pretty things. He said I—”

“Where is the crime?” Lord Touars asked. “There is no law against fucking a boy and giving him an earring. From what I can see, he was doing you a favor. Are those _sapphires_?”

Nicaise came back to Damianos in bits: the blood-like splatter of jewels in his hair, the pierced lobes, the unlaced clothes. Laurent’s words from the night before punctuated the stream of thoughts going through his head. _He has no family_.

Rubies, red and bright and expensive. Rubies.

How many times had Damianos imagined parents for him and a luxurious and idle life in those gardens he liked so much? Lyre and riding lessons, books and the finest of clothes.

Had Laurent always known?

“There was a trial in Arles,” Auguste said. He still had not moved from his seat next to Damianos. Perhaps he couldn’t. “Guion’s treason was proved. He confessed.”

“News of said trial reached the south,” Lord Jehan said. “Supposedly, the man was promised his freedom in exchange for a confession. Yet King Auguste had him beheaded.”

“What does it matter what I did to a traitor?” Auguste asked. “He was mine to punish as I saw fit.”

“And what was the proof of his treason, nephew? Was there a letter, perhaps? Or a journal? Had he told someone else about out alleged deal?”

“He confessed,” Auguste said tightly, “and that was proof enough for me.”

His uncle let out a sigh. “You tortured him, didn’t you, Auguste?”

To that, Auguste said nothing. His fists were clenched so tightly blood dripped from one of them and onto his lap.

“This is my fault,” his uncle said. “I should have seen what was in front of me, but because he was my nephew I simply refused to acknowledge the truth. Auguste has always been quick to anger, has always had issues controlling his temper. One can only imagine what my youngest nephew has had to endure all these years by his side. Auguste’s depraved tendencies are—”

“You dare call me depraved?” Auguste said, his words cutting across his uncle’s like a sword through a man. “I’ve never harmed anyone who did not deserve it. Say what you will about me, but don’t speak of Laurent again. Let the Lords decide if your sick inclinations aren’t something that should be banned.”

It was quiet for a moment. Then, just when the Lords were starting to murmur and get ready to speak again, Auguste’s uncle held a hand up and silenced them.

“You’ve heard what the Lords think of my preferences, but what about yours?”

“I said don’t.”

“Shall I remind the Lords what you stand here accused of, nephew?”

Auguste’s hands went to the empty sheath on his belt where the hilt of his sword would have been, had he been allowed to bring a sword.

“Remind us again, Your Majesty,” Lord Touars said. “My memory isn’t what it once was, and some of the charges are fuzzy.”

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t be a jury at this trial,” Auguste said.

“I have a question,” Lord Jehan said, but he was not staring at Auguste. His eyes were on Aimeric’s face. “You claim he gave you an earring.”

“Yes,” Aimeric said.

“Where is the other one? Earrings come in pairs, boy.”

Aimeric writhed in his chair. “I don’t know.”

Lord Rolant was smiling. “That, to me, is proof enough that the boy is lying. His Majesty could certainly have afforded more than one earring.”

“There must be an explanation,” Lord Peire said. “Perhaps you should start at the beginning, in case you’ve missed something.”

“The beginning?” Aimeric asked. He sounded out of breath.

The Lords settled in their chairs, some leaning back and others forward. They were getting comfortable, Damianos realized. They were enjoying this.

“That first night,” Lord Touars said. “Narrate it for us.”

“I don’t—I was—” Aimeric’s struggle with words went on and on. At last, “I don’t remember it. Chalis—”

“Makes one drowsy,” Lord Rolant said. “Did you sleep through it? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I thought this wasn’t relevant,” Auguste said icily. “You said yourselves that there is no crime. Why make Aimeric share this with you?”

The Lords ignored him.

Lord Touars said, to Aimeric, “The physician said you weren’t badly hurt. I take it you weren’t bent over that first time?”

A long, horrible pause followed. Then came Aimeric’s voice, steady and fractured at the same time.

“He asked me to kneel.”

Damianos stood and, ignoring the questioning looks from everyone in the room, made his way towards the door. He could stomach no more.

*

“I don’t want to play cards today,” Nicaise said, his back turned to Damianos. He was soaking his feet in the fountain. “I—”

“You’re a pet,” Damianos said.

Nicaise went very still. One second he was sitting down on the marble edge, the next he was standing on it, ready to run. He was dressed in burgundy clothes, loose and unlaced. His ruby earrings sparkled under the midday sun.

“You can’t fuck me,” Nicaise said. He was trying to sound defiant, but his eyes widened when Damianos took a step closer. “I have a contract.”

“With the King.”

The air smelled sweet. Behind Nicaise, Damianos spotted the statue of a grinning boy, his clothes barely covering his lanky legs. He thought, _I’ve been a fool_.

“Maybe. Maybe not. What is it to you, Akielon dog?”

“How old are you?”

It was, evidently, the wrong thing to say. Nicaise’s face contorted in anger, turning a fiery shade of red. Even his neck, seconds earlier pearly white, was now flushed.

“You don’t—”

“Fourteen?” Damianos asked. _They were children_ , Paschal had said. “Fifteen?”

“Shut up,” Nicaise said.

Damianos’s chest hurt. “Fifteen, then.”

Nicaise, furious, threw a pebble at Damianos. It missed Damianos’s head by an inch. “I told you to shut up.” Then, ready to throw another small rock, he said, “I’m not fifteen, you absolute—”

“Throw it,” a voice to Damianos’s back said, “and I’ll kill you.”

Damianos hadn’t heard Govart follow him, but he tried not to show it. Carefully, he turned around to face the man and was pleased to see that Govart’s sword was still in its sheath. Damianos’s dagger was under his pallet, collecting dust. He’d forgotten to grab it again this morning, too busy staring at Laurent.

“He said you can’t be here,” Nicaise said, but it was hard to tell who he was talking to. “He said these are mine.”

Govart must have felt himself being addressed, for he said, “Shut up and come here now.”

Nicaise didn’t move. “Why?”

“Fucking whore, if you make me walk over there—”

“He asked you a question,” Damianos said. He didn’t know why, but being around Govart made him feel disgusted. “Or did you not hear him?”

Govart’s beady eyes found his. Still looking at Damianos, he said to Nicaise, “Now.”

Damianos did not need to turn around to know Nicaise was obeying; he heard the twinkling bells, felt the sweet stench that clung to the boy becoming stronger, and then Nicaise stood right beside him.

The boy barely reached Damianos’s shoulders.

In Akielos, Damianos would have been able to do something. Anything. But this was Vere, and so Damianos could only stand there, watching as Govart put his hand on the nape of Nicaise’s slim neck and pushed him forward, away from the fountain and Damianos.

“Stop,” Nicaise said, trying to squirm out of Govart’s grip. “It’ll bruise. He doesn’t like that.”

They had made it to the arched entrance when Govart finally let go of Nicaise’s neck. His hand, pudgy and dirty, soon found something else to busy itself with, sinking lower and lower down Nicaise’s back.

Damianos stumbled towards the fountain, kneeling beside it, and splashed water on his face to try and keep the nausea at bay. He knew the trial wasn’t over yet, but he couldn’t bring himself to go back into that room and force himself to listen to the rest of Aimeric’s testimony.

It was too much, all of it.

When the urge to vomit had passed, Damianos stood up and headed to the courtyard where some of Auguste’s guards were gathered. He ignored all of them, focusing solely on the task at hand: to get away from this place.

*

Laurent was sitting on the fur-covered floor, slipping arrows into a black leather quiver. He paused when he saw Damianos standing at the entrance, pressing his thumb into the sharp tip of the arrowhead. His bow was nowhere to be seen.

Damianos relaxed slightly.

“You didn’t wake me,” Laurent said.

“I didn’t.”

“And you promised me you would.”

“I did.”

Laurent removed his thumb. It was an angry shade of red. “You’re not my brother,” he said in a calm, detached voice. The arrow slipped gracefully from his fingers and disappeared into the quiver. “You can’t make decisions for me.”

Damianos was quiet. For once, he did not have to struggle to keep the words in; they stayed away on their own. He tried to focus on the arrows—their heads, their shafts—but it soon proved to be impossible. All he could see were Laurent’s nimble fingers, moving like white spider legs.

In silence, Laurent reached under the bed and pulled out his bow. It was nothing like the one Nikandros had gifted him in Ios. That one had been smaller, well suited for a child. This bow looked solid, its wood most likely rubbed with oils to bring out its shine, and it was another proof of how much Laurent had grown in the four years they hadn’t seen each other. Thirteen-year-old Laurent could have never held a bow like this so elegantly.

“Unless you want me to use you as a target,” Laurent said, “you should leave.”

Damianos watched him stand up. “It’ll take more than one arrow to take me down.”

“I have fifteen.”

Laurent slung the quiver over his right shoulder and began making his way towards the entrance where Damianos stood, dithering. He stopped, his eyes fixed on a spot next to Damianos’s face.

“Don’t follow me,” Laurent said. “If you do, I’ll put an arrow through your thigh.”

Involuntarily, Damianos looked down, as if to check that the flesh was unharmed. Laurent took that as an opportunity to slither away past Damianos and out of the tent, each step firm enough to shake the earth.

It was hard to tell if Laurent had meant what he’d said. Damianos knew Laurent was skilled at threatening and pushing until others felt the desperate need to give in to his commands, but he’d never seen him cross that clear line between threat and action, between strategy and cruelness. Unlike Auguste.

Damianos had spent the day away in the forest, sitting on a secluded spot that he and Laurent had studied when they’d planned their escape route. He had not registered the pass of time until now, walking out of Laurent’s tent only to find that the sun was setting, dyeing the sky orange. Soon it would be night.

The decision to follow Laurent came easily to him. Along with the oil lamp, he made sure to grab one of his cloaks, telling himself the fabric would soak up the blood nicely in case Laurent decided to follow through with his threat.

On his way to the forest, Damianos spotted Jord and Lazar. They were standing very close, near Paschal’s tent, talking in hushed voices. As soon as Lazar noticed Pallas was walking in their direction, he moved away from Jord, a discreet step back that had Damianos frowning.

And then the three of them were laughing, Pallas’s face flushed, for he had tripped in his rush to get to them.

Damianos ignored them. He ignored everyone around him as he made his way through the forest and towards the stream. He pushed all his thoughts away and focused on not tripping over thick roots or fallen branches. He’d had hours to calm down, hours to think of everything that had happened since he’d woken up. 

He had barely made it into the small clearing the stream cut through when a flash of movement forced him to stop. Looking down at the ground, he realized the whistling sound he’d heard seconds ago was one of Laurent’s arrows flying at him. Or, more specifically, at his leg.

Damianos felt grateful it had missed the oil lamp.

“I told you not to come here,” Laurent said, bow still raised.

Stupidly, Damianos said, “No. You told me not to follow you.”

Laurent’s aim changed. If he let go, the arrow would pierce through Damianos’s groin.

“Don’t.”

Laurent tilted his head a little, like a curious falcon, and said, “Why not?”

“I—”

“If it’s your lovers you are worried about, you should know I’m not that cruel. You’d still have your hands. Didn’t you say you were good with them?”

“Laurent.”

But Laurent only took a step closer, not lowering the bow in the slightest. “Damianos.”

“I won’t apologize,” Damianos said. He wasn’t afraid of Laurent, not at all, and that was what truly scared him. “You hadn’t slept—”

An arrow cut him off. It went through the gap between Damianos’s thighs, missing the hem of his chiton by less than an inch. Damianos felt the rush of cold air against his skin, and it took everything in him not to jump.

“Your aim is not what I remembered,” Damianos said, ignoring his erratic heartbeat. He watched as Laurent reached for another arrow and put it in place, ready to be shot. “In Ios, you never missed the bullseye.”

“There is no bullseye here,” Laurent said. “Only a giant animal.”

Laurent wasn’t wearing a vest. His white shirt was tightly laced, but it was so thin it gave away the tension in Laurent’s body, the way his shoulders were drawn back so far his collarbones poked through the sheer fabric.

Damianos bent over at the waist and set the oil lamp on the ground next to a mossy log. He made sure to drop the cloak as well, but far enough from the lamp so that the fire would have no way of reaching it on its own.

When he straightened, Laurent was standing closer than before, pointing the arrow at Damianos’s throat. Damianos had not heard him move at all.

Above them, the sky was still orange. The sunlight was fading fast, but for now, it tinged the woods golden and warm. Had Laurent not been there, the clearing would have been the most beautiful sight Damianos had ever seen.

“Why are you here, Damianos?”

“You know why.”

The cold arrowhead touched Damianos’s skin like an icy kiss. “Auguste’s pathetic attempts at keeping me—”

“I am not here on your brother’s behalf,” Damianos said. He swallowed, and the tip of the arrow dug deeper into him. Soon, it would draw blood. “And I was not following his orders when I made the choice to leave you behind this morning.”

“You had no right,” Laurent said.

“I don’t regret it.”

Damianos’s hand found Laurent’s on the bow and, gently, started to push it to the side. Laurent’s fingers were tense and cold. They twitched under Damianos’s once, twice, and then Laurent was lowering the bow, letting Damianos take it from him.

The arrow, now that Laurent was not holding it in place, slipped and fell to the ground. Neither of them moved to pick it up. After a moment, Damianos set the bow on the ground as well.

“Did you know?” Damianos said. “About Aimeric.”

Laurent stared at the setting sun through the trees, his blue eyes flecked with gold. He said nothing.

Damianos forced the words out. “You knew about Nicaise.”

“I know my uncle’s type,” Laurent said in a calm voice. And then, “Childishly young. Pretty enough that you cannot help but stare at them. Abrasive.”

Abrasive.

“Aimeric was twelve,” Damianos said even though he did not want to.

He felt every beat of his own heart against his too-tight rib cage, the slow and agonizing flow of his blood. He felt himself grow faint, blurring at the edges.

Laurent’s eyes on his. The whole forest had gone quiet around them, waiting. Even the sound of rushing water had dimmed, disappearing as if to not intrude on them, on this.

“As I said, he likes them young.”

“I remember your face when we met Nicaise,” Damianos said. “You were surprised. You didn’t—” He stopped, watching the memory unfold in his head. “Before you saw Nicaise, you didn’t know about Aimeric. You—”

“Don’t,” Laurent said, and perhaps it was a good thing that he was not holding his bow anymore. The unabashed urgency in his voice made it clear he would have used it. “You don’t know anything.”

“I know you.”

Laurent’s face contorted.

“I trust you.”

Laurent said, “Stop.”

Damianos’s hands curled around Laurent’s elbows. They were bony and cold and Damianos wanted them to rub them warm and flushed. He never wanted any part of Laurent to be cold again.

“You don’t know what I’ve done,” Laurent said. His blonde eyebrows touched, three wrinkles appearing on his otherwise smooth forehead. He was looking at Damianos’s hands. “If you did, you’d treat me the way Auguste does.”

Whatever Laurent meant by that, Damianos did not feel strong enough to ask him. He knew Laurent would not tell him anyways, might even push him away and pick up his bow.

“I wouldn’t,” Damianos said, “because I’m not your brother. I’m—” He felt it then: the resistance of his own tongue, the way the muscle refused to relax around the words, clamping up to the point of pain. Pushing through it, he said, “Your friend.”

The rushing water roared between them, as though whatever veil had kept it muted had been lifted. Damianos was suddenly aware of every chirp, every howl. He could hear Laurent’s slow breathing, always the calmest part of him, even now.

Laurent looked up at him.

“Friends,” he said, his voice cutting through all the other noises. “Is that what we are?”

Damianos did not know how to interpret the careful hesitation in Laurent’s words. Did Laurent think so lowly of Damianos that he could not see himself stuck in a friendship with him? Or did he, like Damianos, hesitate because _friends_ was not the right word, not precise enough, to describe what had been growing between them for weeks?

“I care for you,” Damianos said, “and I’d like to think you—”

“Are you and Auguste not friends?”

Startled into honesty, Damianos said, “Of course we are.”

“Yet you do not behave like this with him,” Laurent said. Another slow tilt of his head. “With Dion, I never—” He stopped. His frown deepened. “What could you possibly—”

“We’re friends,” Damianos said, trying to sound firm.

In the dying light, Laurent’s face blanked out, like a sheet being stretched to its full capacity, all wrinkles smoothed out.

“You’re lying,” Laurent said. “I can always tell when it’s you. Although I don’t understand why.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Is this your attempt to spare my feelings? Let me assure you, then, that I don’t care in the slightest to whom you grant this title. Nikandros and Auguste both serve as proof that being your friend is for the weak, foolish, and—”

“You’re right,” Damianos said, and it was clear Laurent had not been expecting him to say it, for his expression turned sour. “It wasn’t true.” And then, to put an end to it all, “I cannot be your friend, Laurent.”

Laurent tried to pull away, but Damianos did not let him. Eventually, he stopped struggling, but the tension never left his body, as though he was planning to run away the second Damianos released him.

“I’m the one who’s been a fool, not Nikandros,” Damianos said. He could not bear to think of Auguste, could not speak his name out loud. “He knew before I did. When he saw me looking at you that first night in Arles, in the ballroom, he tried to warn me. And I did not listen.”

“Warn you,” Laurent said, the perfect picture of feigned indifference. “Against what?”

Damianos’s hands moved up Laurent’s arms, a slow hike to his shoulders and then past them, resting, as though exhausted, on Laurent’s cheeks. Damianos kept them there, feeling the blood rushing under Laurent’s skin, tainting it all red.

Dusk had passed. The only light that was golden now was the one the oil lamp offered them, a single flame that burned and warmed and never stuttered. It cast shadows, but Laurent was too busy looking at Damianos to notice. His eyelashes were the color of wheat, strikingly pale against the dark blue of his eyes.

Slowly, very slowly, Damianos leaned in and kissed Laurent on the mouth.

It was the chastest kiss Damianos had ever given anyone. He didn’t close his eyes until the last second, wanting to see every reaction that flashed across Laurent’s face, every flickering feeling Laurent was trying to keep subdued. Damianos felt every beat of his own heart, a lazy and calm rhythm, but loud enough that he could hear the blood rushing to his ears. He wondered, stupidly, if Laurent could hear it too.

Laurent’s lips were cold at first, but they warmed instantly, as if even that part of him could blush too, and parted slightly to let out a stuttered sigh.

When the time came to deepen the kiss, Damianos pulled back. Laurent’s eyes remained closed.

“I could never be just your friend,” Damianos said. His thumb brushed over Laurent’s cheekbone, and then went lower to touch his jaw. “Not when I—”

“You want to fuck me,” Laurent said. He opened his eyes, which were very blue and very cold. He added, “Is that it?”

Damianos recoiled. His body moved on its own, taking a step back to put distance between them again, and then another step, and another.

But Laurent did not seem to like that, for he advanced determinedly, like a falcon who had just found a small, tame mouse to play with. And devour.

“Why haven’t you? I’ve slept in your bed,” Laurent said. He sounded practical, distant. “I’d even had wine last night.”

Damianos stopped retreating. “Is that what you think of me?” he said, thinking of Aimeric. There was something there, a similarity, but Damianos pushed it away. “That I’m some beastly animal who’d take advantage of you when the first opportunity arose? No, answer me.”

They stared at each other. The tension had never really left Laurent, but now it seemed to have reached its peak. He did not look like he was breathing.

“I think,” Laurent said, slowly, “that the only reason you haven’t fucked me yet is that you know what my brother would do to you if he found out.”

Anger came to him easily, and it only took Damianos a moment to understand why. Laurent’s rejection would have hurt less than this, than the truth being ripped to shreds between them, distorting.

He wouldn’t let Laurent do this.

Shadows danced around them when a breeze disturbed the flame of the oil lamp. They were now impossible to ignore.

“Be cruel,” Damianos said. “It won’t change a thing. I want you, and if things were different, I would have asked Auguste to—”

“Allow you to stick your cock in me?”

“—gift me the honor of courting you.”

Laurent had no time to mask his surprise.

“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” Damianos said, even though he did not regret it. Not even a little. “Without your brother’s permission and a real courtship between us, an advance like that is dishonorable.”

“I,” Laurent said, and stopped. Then, with renewed breath, “You’re lying.”

“You know I’m not.”

“Then you’re an idiot,” Laurent said, sharper than Damianos had heard him in a while. “You’re the King of Akielos. Your betrothed should be a woman.”

It was the first time Damianos had seen Laurent’s logic fail. Amusedly, he said, “And why is that?”

“Because you need an heir. Your line will—”

They stared at each other. Laurent did not apologize, and Damianos did not ask him to.

“I’m Veretian,” Laurent said in a haste. He was not used to being wrong. “We were at war less than a decade ago.”

“There is a peace treaty between our countries. Courting you would only make it stronger.”

Something ugly flickered across Laurent’s face. “If you think I’ll let you fuck me into the mattress and take Vere away from me, you’re—”

Damianos did not want to hear more. “Vere isn’t yours to give away,” he said, and his voice carried. The woods had gone quiet all of the sudden, as though all the creatures were afraid of the dark. “It’s your brother’s. And I would never—how can you think I would ever—”

“Then why?” Laurent said. Perhaps he’d intended to sound angry, but all Damianos could hear was the confusion in his voice. _Why?_ It was a child’s question. “Auguste is already indebted to you. If you married one of King Torgeir’s daughters, you’d have Patras as an ally.”

“I know.”

“You clearly don’t,” Laurent snapped. His voice carried as well, sharp as a whip. “Vere is divided and the south hates Akielos. You have no friends here except for my brother, who will be dead before this season ends. You—how stupid can you possibly be?”

Calmly, Damianos said, “I don’t want Vere, Laurent. I want you.”

Laurent’s eyes stayed wide open as Damianos’s hand touched the nape of his neck. He came forward willingly, allowing Damianos to pull him in, frozen with his own surprise, and let out no noise when his forehead touched the naked skin of Damianos’s shoulder. Laurent’s arms were trapped between their bodies, his hands clutching the front of Damianos’s chiton with unreserved desperation.

Damianos could feel the flutter of Laurent’s eyelashes against his neck. He said, “Are you going to ask me for an army?”

Laurent did not answer. He slowly unclenched his fingers, touching instead of gripping, but didn’t move. His body, although not as rigid as it had looked from a distance moments ago, was still stiff and uncertain, as if getting used to being held.

“You’re thinking too much,” Damianos said, rubbing circles on Laurent’s nape with his thumb. “Stop.”

“You’re thinking too little,” Laurent said. After a pause, “As usual.”

Damianos laughed. He pulled back enough to see Laurent’s face and was pleased to find that his frown was gone. Laurent wasn’t smiling, but he did not look upset either. So far, he hadn’t tried to stab Damianos with the arrows he was still carrying on his back, which Damianos considered a good sign.

Even though he did not want to, Damianos pulled back completely.

“It’s dark,” Damianos said. He noticed the way Laurent’s eyes refused to leave his face and he was not naive enough to believe it was due to some sudden infatuation. The flame of the lamp flickered and Laurent’s fingers twitched on Damianos’s chest. “We should head back to the camp.”

Laurent said nothing, watching in absolute silence as Damianos bent down to pick up the oil lamp and the bow. Returning the last one to Laurent, Damianos set out to pluck the two arrows that had been shot at him earlier.

Once he had them, he took a step closer to Laurent—close enough that Laurent held in his breath—and slipped the arrows into the quiver.

Damianos thought of what it’d be like, to slip his hand into Laurent’s and hold it as they walked through the woods. He thought of it as Laurent sidestepped him to get to the path, and again as Laurent turned once, only once, halfway through the journey, to see if Damianos was still behind him.

The center of the camp was brimming with men, eating and drinking around the lit bonfire, flames and sparks sizzling in the night. Silently, they both circled it, heading towards their tents instead of joining the others for dinner.

Before Damianos could open his mouth, Laurent was stepping forward and disappearing into his tent.

 _You’re bored_ , Nikandros had told him in Arles, _and you’ve never had a refusal before. This is a game, an interesting one, but not the sort you should be playing with the Prince of Vere._

He stood there, watching the entrance of Laurent’s tent, feeling cold and strangely empty. He’d been rejected only once—if what Jokaste had done could even be called rejection—but it had not felt like this. Damianos doubted anything would feel like this again.

The walk to his own tent felt shameful.

As he set the oil lamp on the stool next to his pallet, Damianos thought of his father and the expression on his face when the command Kastor had been leading to Sanpelier was cornered and forced to retreat. It was stupid and pointless, but Damianos couldn’t help but wonder how his father would have looked at him, had Damianos told him he’d dared try and court a Veretian, only for his advances to be refused.

There was not enough air in the tent.

Damianos stepped out again, feeling restless. He wished Nikandros was with him so they could spar or run or wrestle. He wished he was back in Ios and that he’d never come here in the first place, that he’d listened to Nikandros, to Auguste, to anyone but himself.

His feet took him towards the wine barrels. The men guarding them shared a look before letting him through. One supplied Damianos with a cup, and the other made sure to fill it. Once in his hand, Damianos regretted his decision. He almost asked them where they kept the sweet wine, the one Laurent had smelled like the night before, but he couldn't bring himself to talk.

Instead, he drained his cup in two gulps, grimacing at the bitter aftertaste, and handed the cup back. He’d never thought he’d find himself in a situation where he’d miss Makedon’s griva, and yet there he was, standing in the middle of a Veretian camp with nothing to drink but acrid wine and nothing to think of but his own mistakes.

The guards started talking about a brothel they’d been to in the capital, and that was all it took for Damianos to turn around and retreat back into his tent. He had no desire to listen to that.

He’d barely crossed the entrance when he realized Laurent was there, sitting on the pallet and watching him, similar to what he’d looked like that very same morning.

“I thought,” Damianos said, and then realized he did not want to say it out loud.

Laurent’s hair was loose. It hid half of his face. “I was waiting.”

The oil lamp had been moved. Damianos had left it next to the bed, and now it was on the floor, carefully set so the light was low and didn’t cast shadows on the cloth around them. Although the bed was made, Laurent had stripped off the wool blanket, folding it neatly and leaving it at the foot of the pallet.

Damianos moved forward. He took the blanket, ready to drop it on the floor and ask for a pillow when Laurent’s cold hand wrapped around his wrist and stopped him.

“Laurent.”

Laurent’s voice, steady and sharp like an arrow. “Did you mean it?”

“Yes,” Damianos said. He was too relieved to feel offended. “Of course.”

“Of course,” Laurent echoed, lower, as though he was talking to himself.

“It’s because I meant it that we can’t—”

“We can,” Laurent said. “You want to.”

Damianos let go of the wool blanket. Laurent’s grip on his wrist loosened.

“I don’t want to,” Damianos said, softening the blow by cupping Laurent’s cheek with his right hand. The skin felt feverishly hot under the pad of his thumb. In a daze, Damianos wondered if all of Laurent blushed like this. “Not like this.”

“We’ve shared a bed before.”

“And it was wrong,” Damianos said. “Even sharing a tent is not… ideal.”

Laurent looked up at him. “Why cavil?” he said, and it sounded like he was the one stalling, his voice going unsteady, twisting around the last syllable. “Let’s fuck.”

“No.”

Bewilderment. It transformed Laurent, from his face to the way his shoulders were pushed back to the point of discomfort. “ _No_?”

“No,” Damianos repeated. He grabbed the blanket again and dropped it on the floor. Somewhere along the way Laurent had let go of his wrist. “Are you going to read or can I blow out the—”

“There is no courtship between us,” Laurent said. “We’ve shared a bed. You kissed me. You said ‘Laurent, I want you’.”

“I also told you I don’t want to do it like this.”

“On the bed? You can fuck me on the floor, if you’d prefer.”

Damianos knew Laurent could be crass, but he’d never heard him like this before. From anyone else, such boldness would have been exciting, but in Laurent it seemed strange, mimicked.

Pretended.

“You’ve read enough books, Laurent. You know what courtship entails, what it doesn’t. I won’t dishonor you like this.”

A moment passed. Damianos thought, foolishly, that Laurent would let things rest.

Instead, Laurent said, “I’m not a virgin. You can’t dishonor me.”

 _Torveld_ , Damianos thought, like a painful throb. “Enough.”

“Half my country thinks I have spread for my brother. Bedding you would only be half as distasteful, in comparison.”

To that, Damianos forced himself to say nothing. He grabbed one of the pillows and placed it on the floor, over the blanket. He was about to kneel and, eventually, lie down when Laurent’s hand found his wrist again.

“Don’t,” Laurent said.

“Laurent.”

He tried to pull away, gently, but Laurent’s grip tightened, blunt fingernails digging into the soft flesh of Damianos’s wrist, right into his tendons.

“Braid my hair,” Laurent said. “I’ll let you sleep after.”

All Damianos had to do was tug harder. Laurent would be forced to let go and the issue would be settled, but the wideness of Laurent’s eyes pulled him in, like a moth to a flame.

Had Laurent ever been refused?

Damianos let Laurent guide him to the bed, pulling him down by the wrist so he was sitting on the edge of the mattress. It dipped under Damianos’s weight.

Instead of turning around, Laurent stayed on his haunches. They faced each other.

“Stay still,” Laurent said.

Feeling too much like a dog, Damianos complied.

Laurent’s fingers on his jaw, tracing the edge of it. His cold thumb pressed against a spot above the right corner of Damianos’s mouth, and, as if coaxed, the dimple came out. Laurent must have felt it, for he removed his thumb and stared at it for a long time.

It would have been easy for Damianos to tilt his head as Laurent was leaning in, to meet him halfway, lips already parted, but he didn't. He stayed still and let Laurent press a kiss into the corner of his mouth. And then another, this time on the right spot.

Laurent pulled back, his face unreadable. “You didn’t move,” he said.

“You told me not to.”

There was a noise outside the tent. It was a shuffling of sorts.

Damianos was on his feet before Laurent could even speak. He brought a hand to his own lips, begging Laurent to remain quiet, and then rushed to the entrance right as one of the tent flaps was being pushed to the side.

It was Auguste.

“Hello,” he said, a tired smile tugging on his lips. “Is it a bad time? You look… flustered.”

Damianos didn’t move. He was blocking the way, and could not think to explain why. “I—”

A loud sound cut him off. It was the creaking of the pallet.

Auguste’s smile turned conspiratory. “I take it you’ve found out that mousy hair looks blonde in the candlelight.”

Damianos stared at him, unable to find the words, any words at all, to say. He wanted to tell Auguste he was wrong, but that would mean explaining who was waiting inside his tent. In his bed.

“I’ve only come to give you these,” Auguste said, handing over a thick stack of pristine-looking letters. There were so many of them that Auguste had taken the precaution of binding the envelopes together using string. “Try not to lose them.”

Damianos took the letters. He understood what they were a second too late. “No,” he said, trying to give them back. “There’s no need for—”

“I think we both know there is,” Auguste said in a calm, steady voice. “Promise me you’ll give them to him.”

“Auguste.”

But Auguste only stared, waiting.

“I’d already promised you I would,” Damianos said. The paper burned his hands, too real and wrong.

Something thawed in Auguste, the last of his tension finally slipping away. “Thank you,” he said. “I wasn’t sure… You left so abruptly today, and I…”

“It was too much,” Damianos said. He focused on Auguste’s face instead of his memories of the trial. “I just couldn’t.”

“There will be a meeting tomorrow morning if you’d like to join us. We’ll discuss what happened today.”

Damianos’s skin burned. He wondered if guilt could induce a fever. “Of course.”

Auguste lowered his eyes. “About this morning,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said certain things. They were between my brother and me.”

_I want to court him, please let me, I want—_

“I trust you won’t ask him about them. I don’t think his opinion of me can get any lower, but in case it is possible…”

“Auguste.”

Auguste offered him a dismissive gesture of his hand. The heavy moment passed, like rain clouds being blown away by the wind. On his tiptoes, Auguste tried to sneak a glance inside the tent, but Damianos stopped him, holding the tent flaps tightly closed behind him.

“Shy?” Auguste asked. He sounded amused. When Damianos did not answer, he simply laughed and said, “Enjoy your pet, Damianos.”

Damianos waited a long time before slipping inside his tent again, wanting to be sure Auguste would not return. As soon as he’d crossed the entrance, he walked over to the bed where Laurent was waiting for him, under the covers.

“What did he want?” Laurent asked. He was staring at the ceiling, which meant he had not seen the letters Damianos was holding.

Slipping them under the mattress as he sat down, Damianos said, “I told you to be quiet.”

“You didn’t tell me anything,” Laurent said. “And besides, I didn’t speak.”

Damianos rubbed his face with both hands. “Go to sleep, Laurent.”

“Do you really think he’d say no?”

Tiredly, “He’s said no before.”

“Not to you,” Laurent said, sitting up. “I bet he’d be glad, in a way.”

“In what way could he possibly be glad that I want to court his little brother?”

At Damianos’s words, Laurent’s face flushed. He angled it away before speaking again. “He’d be rid of me, were you to succeed in your… pursuit.”

Damianos’s chest felt tight. He thought of the stack of letters under the mattress, of Auguste’s voice earlier that day when he’d told Damianos about Laurent carrying a butter knife around to defend him.

He was about to say something— _you know that’s not true_ —when he realized Laurent had put the pillow and the blanket back on the bed.

“Nothing has to change,” Laurent said, following his gaze. “You haven’t asked him yet.”

The last of Damianos’s self-restraint was splintering. “The light,” he said, twisting so he could reach the oil lamp beside the pallet.

One swift blow later, the tent was dark and quiet.

He felt rather than saw Laurent’s hands on him, pulling him down. Damianos lay next to him but made sure that their bodies weren’t touching. A pillow would have done the trick, but Laurent was hoarding both of them.

All thought left him as soon as Laurent curled closer, just as he’d done every single night they had shared a bed. Damianos couldn’t have turned him away even if he’d tried, even if he’d wanted to.

Damianos’s fingers got lost in Laurent’s hair. Then, frowning, he said, “I forgot to braid it.”

Laurent let out a sighed laugh into his neck. It sounded almost happy.

*

When Damianos woke up the tent was just as dark. Laurent was asleep in his arms, the tip of his nose tickling the skin behind Damianos’s ear, his cold feet tucked under Damianos’s legs.

The dream dissipated, but the ghost-like voices remained in his head, growing louder and louder by the second.

 _He has a thing for irony,_ and _I trusted someone once_ , and _I was thirteen,_ and _My uncle loves me,_ and _Abrasive_.

Damianos breathed slowly through strands of honeyed hair and, holding Laurent closer, told himself he was wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT EDIT TO THIS NOTE: Due to some comments and feedback I've received over the last couple of weeks, I have decided to take some time off. I will use this time wisely to write and edit the last chapters of this story. Thank you!
> 
> Hello dearies! It's been another two weeks :,) life is hell
> 
> \- I made a mistake which I have now edited out of the story (yes, it's the paint thing. I wrote about the pets in Arles wearing it - sorry).
> 
> \- I know you're all pretty mad because their first kiss was sort of ruined by Laurent's crass mouth and I know you probably don't understand why Laurent was offering to have sex with Damen (Hopefully you do, but in case you don't, I promise I'll try and explain this next chapter when we're finally back to Laurent's POV) BUT I just want to say that you are yet to witness real fluff, pals. You have no idea what awaits you from now on.  
> I also think it's important to keep in mind that Damen has been aware of his feelings for much longer than Laurent and so Laurent kissing him back PASSIONATELY would make no sense, IMO. (I'm sorry, don't hate me)
> 
> \- I feel the need to clarify that there is victim-blaming, "slut-shaming", talk of pedophilic behavior and abuse, etc. in this chapter that I don't condone. (The trial is obviously very wrong, I don't agree with anything the Regent/Dick says, I don't think Aimeric was able to consent, etc.)
> 
> \- [Heather drew this scene ft. Dion's letter](https://heatherdrawings.tumblr.com/post/627710450839289856/the-only-reason-its-taking-me-so-long-to-finish) and [a beautiful scene where Laurent is practicing archery.](https://heatherdrawings.tumblr.com/post/628079229529128960/when-the-sun-is-on-again-just-has-to-many-visuals)
> 
> \- I wish I could promise you the weekly update, but it is impossible for me to write that fast. I will post the next chapter as soon as I can, but in the meantime (and if you're interested) you should read [this fic called The Mannequin Gallery](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23625325) by marrieddorks. Damen is absolutely in character (he is the best Damen I have ever read, ngl) and Nicaise makes the best appearances. 
> 
> I hope you are all doing well <3


	24. Twenty-two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE check the warnings at the end before reading this chapter.

**Twenty-two**

The bowl was too full. Fifty-six berries were in it, red and lustrous and heavier than Laurent had predicted they would be. His wrist ached, but there was little that could be done about it. He was carrying a full pitcher in his other hand, too heavy as well, and it was so early in the morning that most of the guards were either asleep or bathing. There was no one to order into helping.

By the time he’d made it back to Damianos’s tent, the muscles of his right arm felt hot and tight, the bones of his wrist ready to snap at any second. This annoyed Laurent for reasons he could not quite explain to himself. What, he wondered, was the difference between this ache and all the other ones he had always carefully draped around himself? What was a sore wrist to a bleeding foot, a tired muscle to a pierced thumb?

Damianos’s tent was just as Laurent had left it: silent except for Damianos’s soft breathing, dark except for the faint sunlight that crept inside through the open tent flaps. Warm.

He felt boyish as he set the pitcher and the bowl down on the stool by Damianos’s pallet. At thirteen, he would have dumped the cold water on Damianos’s head, only for the thrill of it. Only to see if he would get hurt for it.

That old urge to reach for the pitcher was there, but Laurent ignored it, sitting on the edge of the mattress instead.

Damianos lay sprawled on the floor, the wool blanket covering most of his legs. His undershirt was loose, no laces keeping it tightly together, and so his back was almost on full display. In sleep, he didn’t look younger or softer, but rather more like himself.

Laurent found that he could stare at Damianos—his slightly open mouth, his fluttering eyelids—for entire minutes and not grow bored, and that discovery startled him into action.

Nudging Damianos with his foot, Laurent said, “Breakfast.”

Damianos stirred and again Laurent was reminded of how different they were. One second Damianos lay asleep before him, and the next his eyes were open, fingers curling around Laurent’s ankle as if to keep him in place. He wasn’t a slow riser, like Laurent. He didn’t indulge in the comfort of a soft bed or—

“You’re frowning,” Damianos said as he stretched. He tilted his head to the side, craning his neck until he found some secret pleasure. A loud _pop_. “What’s wrong?”

“You slept on the floor again.”

Laurent reached out for the bowl full of berries just to have something to hold onto and keep his hands from fidgeting. He grabbed a handful and placed them on Damianos’s palm. One of the berries—a tiny red thing—fell to the floor and rolled under the bed.

“I told you I would,” Damianos said. He was yet to look away from Laurent’s face. “Did you not believe me?”

Laurent hadn’t. “You enjoy suffering,” he said, holding the bowl tighter.

Damianos brushed his thumb against Laurent’s ankle. Frowning, he brought his other hand to his mouth so he could eat the berries. A single thread of liquid red dribbled down his chin as he chewed.

“You still eat like a beast,” Laurent said.

A bloody smile, toothless. _I have kissed that mouth_ , Laurent thought as Damianos’s cheeks caved in and his throat worked.

“Do I?” Damianos said. “I thought I ate like a savage.”

“They aren’t mutually—”

“Exclusive terms.”.

They stared at each other. Slowly, Damianos’s smile turned sour, his dimple disappearing as if it had never been there.

Damianos wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He let go of Laurent’s ankle, using both arms to climb his way onto the mattress. It was hard to remember he’d been sleeping mere minutes ago, for his eyes were focused and clear now, his movements precise.

“In Akielos,” Damianos said, taking the wooden bowl from Laurent’s stiff hands, “courtship can be months long.” He paused and looked down at his own hands as if unsure of where to put them, what to do with them. “It does not include sharing a bed.”

“This isn’t Akielos,” Laurent said, “and you aren’t courting me.”

 _I want you_ , Damianos had said the night before. But he hadn’t meant it, he still didn’t. Want was something Laurent understood, despite his youthful inexperience. Hadn’t all his suitors wanted him, in that same needy way? Want was like thirst: easily quelled, forgettable.

And yet Damianos...

A thought stirred in Laurent. Kings did not want for anything, they simply took what they liked, threw away what they didn’t. They grew bored easily and without guilt. They knew no refusals. And what was Laurent if not forbidden?

Damianos’s mouth was a thin, pink line. “I have no gifts for you here,” he said after a long and quiet pause. “I don’t even have your brother’s permission.”

“You need neither of those things.”

“Laurent,” Damianos said. He did not go on.

Laurent reached for the berries. He held one between his index finger and his thumb and contemplated whether or not he should crush it. Under Damianos’s gaze, Laurent put it back in the bowl.

“Feed me,” Laurent said.

Surprise flickered in Damianos’s eyes. It was gone within a second. “No.”

“Why not?”

“You can feed yourself.”

“Yes,” Laurent said, pretending to think about it, pretending he did not feel the sting of Damianos’s refusal. “But I’m asking _you_ to do it.”

“I’ve been to Arles,” Damianos said as though that explained it all. After a pause, “You’re not my pet, Laurent.”

Laurent went very still. He felt the grind of his joints as they locked into place, the stiffness spreading through him like water filling a cup. He tried and failed to recover. Eventually, his tongue relaxed enough for him to speak, but even then the words came out strained.

“You fed me once.”

Damianos looked away. “You were a child,” he said, and the words seemed strangely heavy coming from him. “You’re a man now.”

Laurent did not answer. He had never felt less like a man, had never wanted to grow up so badly. _I wish you could stay like this forever_ , Uncle had told Laurent the morning of his thirteenth birthday. At the time, Laurent had thought he’d meant _his_.

His skin was too tight, stretched out to the point of pain. It felt like another reminder of how he’d broadened, how he’d grown. Laurent kept hearing him in his head— _It has been too long_ and _You had twice his beauty, at his age—_ and could do nothing but silently agree.

 _If I’m a man_ , Laurent thought of saying, _why won’t you fuck me?_

Damianos’s hands on his. “—ent?”

Laurent blinked. He had not seen Damianos move closer. Under the pretense of examining his nails, Laurent freed his hands from Damianos’s grasp. The cold bit at his fingers immediately.

Damianos watched him.

“What could you possibly gift me that I don’t possess already?” Laurent asked.

He tried not to think of Auguste’s permission, of Auguste in general. Focusing on these hypothetical gifts was easier, less painful.

“Books, perhaps,” Damianos said.

“I have a library full of them in Arles.”

“A mare.”

“I have one.”

Damianos let out a frustrated sigh. “I know you do, but this one would stay in Ios.”

“With you?”

“With me. You’d ride her when you visited.”

“Is that all?”

“You don’t wear jewelry,” Damianos said. There was a finality to his statement, a palpable weight that made Laurent uncomfortable. His brown eyes were hard. “Auguste does.”

“Auguste is the King,” Laurent said, and paused. Had he spoken too quickly? Had he sounded too desperate to change the subject? “Kings like that sort of thing. Besides, you said it yourself: I’m not a pet.”

Damianos shifted, leaning forward. Laurent’s heart slammed into his ribcage, once, twice, thrice; for a split-second, Laurent thought Damianos was going to kiss him again.

Instead, Damianos tucked some strands of Laurent’s hair behind his ear. His thumb felt like searing iron as it traced the shell of Laurent’s ear, his lobe. The question hung between them, unasked and unanswered.

Laurent was the first to pull away, making sure his hair covered his ear once more.

“Anything,” Damianos said after a while. “I’d give you anything you asked for.”

“That would defeat the whole purpose of courtship.”

“What purpose?”

“For you to guess what I like,” Laurent said. “I shouldn’t have to tell you. Gifts should be—a surprise.”

“A surprise,” Damianos echoed. He was smiling again, a little. “I could do that. Surprise you, I mean.”

Laurent did not doubt it. Damianos had been surprising him, both pleasantly and unpleasantly, since they’d met four years ago.

Shamefully, Laurent remembered all those nights he’d spent tucked in Auguste’s bed, asking him for details about the barbarians. What they ate, how they ate it, whether or not they wore anything under those skimpy _dresses_ of theirs. All those talks he and Auguste had shared over the chessboard: Laurent talking about slavery and how grotesquely wild Akielons were, interrupted by Auguste’s gentle corrections. _Some of them are kind._

One thought followed another and soon Laurent was remembering that hazy summer in Arles, the first one after everything had happened. How many of the men who had feasted at Auguste’s tables, enjoyed his pets, and drank his wine were now dead? Guion, a blurry face Laurent barely remembered seeing at the palace. Theomedes, with his thick beard and thunderous voice. Kastor, who Laurent thought of frequently, without meaning to.

It was hard to think of the last one and not remember Jokaste as well.

Laurent stilled.

“What worries you now?”

“I suppose I do look like her,” Laurent said.

Surprisingly, Damianos did not need to ask who he was talking about. “I don’t think you do,” he said. “Not in the ways that matter, anyways.”

“She’s cunning. And blonde.”

“She’s also my brother’s widow,” Damianos said dryly.

Laurent waved the comment away with his hand. “I remember the pets you liked in Arles. And in Akielos, your bed slaves were—” He stopped. It took him a moment to find the right words. “It’s a fetish for you, then.”

“It isn’t. A preference, perhaps, but no more than that. I’d want you even if your hair was black or red or—”

“You don’t like redheads.”

Damianos curled his hands around Laurent’s and brought it back to his lap. Before Laurent could even protest, he was rubbing Laurent’s knuckles and fingers, trying to warm them up.

“I could see your nails turning blue,” Damianos explained. His fingers occasionally brushed against Laurent’s wrist as if by accident, but Laurent knew him better than that. “It was distracting.” Some of Laurent’s displeasure must have shown on his face, for Damianos asked, “What are you thinking about now?”

“Your slaves.”

Damianos stopped his ministrations. “Which ones?”

“The ones you lead to your bed,” Laurent said. “Do you even know their names?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

Here Damianos hesitated, perhaps trying to remember. Then he said, “Lykaios. Erasmus. I—is there a reason why—”

“Go on,” Laurent said. “I bet the list is long.”

“Neon. Rhea. Isander.”

“How old were they?”

“Old enough,” Damianos said sharply. “In Akielos, submission is an art. It takes time for slaves to master it.”

“An art,” Laurent said, snorting. “Tell me, what is it like fucking someone who can’t refuse?”

Damianos frowned. “Why would they refuse?”

Laurent regarded him for a moment. “You can’t honestly believe they all wanted you.”

“I—” Damianos cut himself off. He looked down at his and Laurent’s hands, then at Laurent’s face again. “Slaves’ submission is a pact: they give up free will in exchange for perfect treatment. I never mistreated them.”

“No, you just fucked them.”

“I did,” Damianos said, everything about him tight. His voice, his posture. “Will you hold that against me? My own culture? At least in Akielos, we don’t—”

Laurent waited for him to continue. When Damianos didn’t, he said, “You don’t…?”

“I don’t want to discuss this with you. Not now.”

“What were you about to say?”

But Damianos ignored him. He grabbed some berries and put them in Laurent’s hand. “Eat. We didn’t have dinner last night.”

“You can’t distract me with food.”

Damianos rubbed a hand over his face. “Please, Laurent.”

The exasperation in Damianos’s voice made Laurent hesitate. He wanted to keep pushing but also knew this was not about Jokaste or the slaves, not really. He knew Damianos knew this, which was why, in the end, he decided to stop.

He ate the berries, slowly, carefully—he did not want any stains on his clothes—and endured Damianos’s gaze on him. It was always strange to have Damianos looking at him when he could have been staring at anything else.

“I’ll give you Auguste,” Damianos said. “I promise he’ll come with us. He won’t—”

“Don’t,” Laurent said. There was only one berry left in his hand, the color of freshly-pressed wine. “Don’t lie to me, not you.”

When Laurent looked at him, he saw that Damianos’s mouth was stained red. Without meaning to, Laurent lifted his hand to touch Damianos’s lips, forcing him into perfect stillness.

“Laurent,” Damianos said against Laurent’s thumb. It was like a sigh. “We’ve talked about this.”

“Have we?”

A single word, strained: “Yes.”

“You let me,” Laurent said. _Kiss you_ , he added in his head. “Last night.”

“Is this even what you want?” Damianos said, removing Laurent’s hand. “Or is this just another way for you to hurt Auguste?”

Interlocked, their fingers looked comically different: snow-white and acorn-brown, short and long, slim and thick. The inside of Damianos’s palm was calloused, most likely from holding a sword, while Laurent’s was smooth and unmarked.

Laurent said, “If I truly wanted to hurt him, I would have left and stayed away instead of asking you into my bed.” He tilted his head, tracing the lines of Damianos’s palms with his eyes. “ _Your_ bed, I mean. And your floor.”

Damianos shifted closer again. He wiped Laurent’s chin, gently, with his thumb. It came away sticky and red. “You eat like a savage,” he said.

Laurent leaned in. The tip of his nose brushed against Damianos’s and, for a second, they shared the same breath. Laurent’s mouth was just parting when Damianos pulled away.

“You truly enjoy suffering,” Laurent said. “I thought Akielons valued physical pain over—”

“Let me court you.”

Everything went painfully still and quiet, both inside and outside the tent. This was how Laurent had felt like by the stream the day before, as though the world was quieting down, being muffled by some external force, leaving the two of them alone and unmuted. It would not have surprised him to learn that at that moment he and Damianos were the only men alive in Vere.

“You don’t need to court me,” Laurent said, aware of his own stubbornness. How many times had they had this conversation? “I’ve already offered—my company. To you.”

Damianos’s reply was instant, rehearsed. “Why did you?”

 _Because he didn’t want me_. “Because you said you wanted me. Were you lying?”

“You know I wasn’t.”

“Then I don’t see what the problem is. Auguste won’t find out if that is what worries you,” Laurent said. Then, more bitterly, “I’m good at keeping secrets.”

“I don’t want this to be a secret,” Damianos said. “I wouldn’t be able to keep it if it was. I’m a terrible liar.” He brought Laurent’s hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to his open, flushed palm. “Let me court you, Laurent.”

Laurent let himself imagine it. A sweet, suffocating summer in Ios. The warm sand of the beach and the sound of the waves crashing against the docks. Gifts that did not include gold or sapphires, as Damianos had promised. A friend.

“It isn’t necessary,” Laurent said after a long time had passed and the dream had faded into nothing. “Do you think I’m some commoner you can impress with clothes and a new mare?”

“I think,” Damianos said softly, “that you have not been treated the way you deserve.”

For the first time in his life, Laurent did not know what to say back. He could only stare at Damianos, trying to read his face, trying to see if he could decipher what he’d meant by that. In the end, he came up blank, no sounds at all wanting to leave his mouth.

It was that last word that speared him into silence, for Laurent had never thought of it as a matter of deserving. He was a prince, he’d always had everything he deserved. He hadn’t—

 _Not everything_ , a little voice mocked him.

Damianos filled in silence for him. “In Akielos, courtship is about respect. This is me asking you to let me honor you the way you should be honored. I know in Vere…” He hesitated. Laurent could only stare. “Many things are different here, but not this one. Your brother told me in his letters about your suitors, how they asked for his permission to even speak to you. A man who overlooks traditions like that is no man at all, Laurent.”

“Are you calling the Prince of Patras a woman?”

“I wouldn’t disgrace women that way,” Damianos said, and his voice was so firm Laurent could not even laugh. “Will you let me do this?”

“You can’t ask him,” Laurent said. “He must not be distracted from the trial.”

“I know.”

Laurent frowned. “But then what—”

“We’ll wait,” Damianos said, “and when this is over I will ask him.”

“He’ll say no.”

“He won’t, not after I explain myself. I’ve never said no to him.”

Bitterness clawed at Laurent’s chest. “Is that what this is about then? Him owing you?”

“Now you’re being difficult on purpose,” Damianos said, not unkindly.

Laurent supposed he was. He was being difficult and stubborn and impolite, and yet he did not care. His brain had turned to mud, all thoughts reduced to that single word— _deserve, deserve, deserve_.

Pulling himself out of his stupor, Laurent said, “Enough about this. Tell me about the trial.”

“There is nothing to tell,” Damianos said. He wasn’t looking at Laurent anymore, not even at their joined hands. His eyes were on the bedding. “Auguste’s defense is in shambles. Aimeric…”

“I don’t care about Aimeric. Tell me about Paschal. Why was he there?”

It was with great effort that Damianos spoke again. “He confessed to being the one who tended to Aimeric’s injuries. In Arles.”

“What injuries?” Laurent asked. “Auguste never hurt him.”

Now Damianos’s eyes were on him. “Of course Auguste didn’t hurt him.”

That only left one other person. Strangely, Laurent’s thoughts turned to Paschal instead. _I could have gone to him_ , he realized, _for salves and pastes. For advice. He would not have said a word_.

“How bad was it?”

“Bad enough,” Damianos said. “Auguste needs to come with us.”

Laurent ignored him. He knew Auguste would rather die than leave Vere like that, which left him very few options. It was clear from what Damianos was saying that the Lords hadn’t believed Aimeric, not even Paschal had been able to convince them, and so that only left Laurent.

“I’ll let you court me,” Laurent said, unexpectedly blushing, “if you promise me something.”

Damianos smiled. “I don’t have an army, Laurent.”

“No, I—” He stopped. He couldn’t say it. And then he thought of Auguste, of what it’d be like to lose him to that dark place no one ever came back from. Auguste, who had always been his private sun, who shone brighter than anyone else. And then suddenly Laurent could. “Don’t go to the trial today.”

“Why? Do you wish to stay?”

“No, but I want you to.”

“I don’t understand,” Damianos said slowly. “You want to go without me?”

Laurent nodded once.

“I can’t do that. I promised Auguste I’d—”

“Do you trust me?” Laurent asked, knowing he was being unfair and not caring. “If you trust me you’ll do this for me.”

“This isn’t about trust, Laurent.”

“It should be. Perhaps you don’t want to court me after all if this is your response to such a meager request.”

Damianos did not seem offended. “Tell me why you want me to stay then.”

But Laurent couldn’t. Telling Damianos defeated the whole purpose of asking him to stay behind. Telling Damianos was worse, in a way, than telling the Lords. _Unnatural_ , Laurent could picture him saying. Like Auguste had.

“You would have to leave the room,” Laurent said. “It would only be for a moment, while I—help Auguste.”

“I want to help him too. Tell me how.”

Laurent couldn’t look at him. “Leave when I ask you to.”

Damianos said nothing. After a pause, his right hand traveled up Laurent's arm, past his neck, to cup his cheek. He smelled of berries, sharp and sweet. “All right,” he finally said. “I’ll do it.”

 _And I’ll let you court me_ , Laurent thought but did not dare say it out loud. It felt too much like a debt being paid.

*

Once Damianos had gone, Laurent tightened the laces on his boots and kneeled by the bed, trying to find his silver hairbrush. It had to be there, somewhere, for Laurent hadn’t taken it back to his tent. He doubted anyone would risk barging in here to steal.

Something cold brushed against his knuckles. The metal warmed instantly in Laurent’s hand, giving in to the caress, and it was only after Laurent looked at it closely that he realized it wasn’t his brush.

It was Damianos’s dagger, golden and glimmering even though there was no sunlight. The brute had forgotten it again.

Without hesitation, Laurent slipped the dagger into the narrow space between his calf and his boot. The golden handle was covered, and the bulge wasn’t noticeable, at least not from Laurent’s perspective. He’d give it to Damianos later.

It was hard to tell how much time left they both had, how many hours Auguste had before the verdict was served. If they had to run, a dagger was not amongst the things Laurent wanted to leave behind.

Once he was dressed, Laurent slipped out of the tent and made his way towards the darker side of the camp. The soldiers stopped mid-laughter when they saw him, straightening, but Laurent ignored them all. There was only one man he was interested in talking to, and he was not even a guard.

“Your Highness,” Jord said, rising from his seat at the entrance of the tent.

Laurent ignored him. He tried to sidestep him to get into the tent, but Jord moved with him, blocking the way.

“Move,” Laurent said.

Jord’s voice was calm and firm. “His Majesty has ordered me to stand guard and not let anyone but him inside.”

Laurent had come here following a feeling rather than a certainty. After what little Damianos had told him, it was clear to Laurent that Aimeric would be hiding, trying to stay out of Auguste’s way. He’d testified, badly, and he was useless now. Useless traitors did not live long, not even in the south.

Jord’s presence confirmed what Laurent himself hadn’t known for certain: Aimeric had found a cozy burrow to crawl into and lick his wounds, and Paschal had been forced to find another tent to sleep in.

“He’s unwell,” Jord said. He sounded weary and worn and wasted. Laurent almost felt sorry for him. “His Majesty has allowed him to rest here until he feels better.”

Laurent watched Jord closely. He wasn’t ugly despite his wild beard and the deep lines that bracketed his mouth. His posture was better than most men’s. He was the Captain of the King’s Guard. What could a man like him want most in life? Lazar was easier to read, had always been, whereas Jord…

Laurent found himself staring at Jord like he was some riddle to solve. It felt ironic, considering how much time Jord had spent looking at him like that when Laurent was a child.

“He doesn’t want to see you, does he?”

Jord said, “Your Highness.”

No matter how much Laurent strained his ears, he could not hear a single sound coming from inside the tent. This part of the camp had always been the quietest, but there was something stilted about its silence now.

“I will give him any message you wish,” Jord said. Then, he added, “Your Highness.”

But what Laurent had come here to say wasn’t something that could be repeated. He should have come sooner, before the trial. He should have spoken to Aimeric the second he’d come back from the castle, his whole body still warm with wine, his head clearer than ever.

It would have been a mercy to tell him what Uncle had said. It would have been like helping him into his armor.

“We’ll speak when he’s done hiding,” Laurent said, loud enough for Aimeric to hear him.

There was no reply, not even from Jord.

*

“You were not invited to these discussions,” Auguste said the moment Laurent stepped into the tent.

“And yet, here I am. It’s very irritating, isn’t it?”

Lord Guillaume’s seat was empty; he was in his tent, sicking up into a bucket. Laurent had heard him on his way to Auguste’s tent, yelling orders at the guards as though they were servants. Antoine’s face had been scarlet with fury.

In silence, Laurent left the entrance and walked to that seat, the only place at the table where he may make room for himself. It offered Laurent a perfect view of Lord Peire’s overly plucked eyebrows, which was in many ways a better alternative to being forced to contemplate Lord Jasque’s face. Or Auguste’s.

“We’ve discussed enough,” Auguste said as he stood up. “Be ready to ride before midday.”

Lord Jasque frowned. “Without Lord Guillaume, Your Majesty?”

Auguste simply looked at the man.

“I only meant—” Lord Jasque flushed. “If he misses today’s events, who will—”

“What solution do you suggest, then? Shall I carry him to the castle, sick as he is, and endure his moaning during the trial?”

Before, Auguste would have been patient. He would have explained, calmly, that the trial had to go on, with or without Lord Guillaume’s presence. He would have smiled as he talked, to soften the blow. Now he did not seem to have the patience for any of that, nor the will. He wanted this to be over.

Lord Peire and Lord Jasque were the first ones to leave after Auguste’s dismissal. They rose loudly from his seats and, walking arm in arm, disappeared from view in a cloud of whispers.

Damianos was next. He stood up with lazy movements, each of them a silent plea to Laurent, asking him to leave first. But when Laurent remained sitting, Damianos was forced to either speak his mind or leave.

In the end, Auguste made the choice for him. He shook his head in Damianos’s direction, a gesture meant to remind him that he too had been dismissed.

Laurent heard him rather than saw him leave. The shuffling of sandals, the tent flaps opening, the sounds of the camp slipping into the tent for a brief second. And then Damianos was gone as well, leaving behind nothing but an uncomfortable silence that seemed to grow more and more stifling with each moment that passed.

Auguste sat down again. He was at the head of the table, dressed in muted colors and tailored fabrics. His crown was nowhere to be seen, which sparked up a question in Laurent’s mind that he had not dared entertain before. Would Auguste have it buried somewhere so that their uncle couldn’t have it, or would he hand it willingly, the way the oaths he had sworn commanded him to?

Laurent thought of it, of how it would look like. Rubies matted with dirt, gold covered by moss.

“What do you want, Laurent?”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Laurent said instead of answering. “The meeting could have gone on.”

In return, Auguste ignored his comment. “If you’re only here to annoy me, I suggest you follow Damianos’s example and leave. It’s too early in the day for me to deal with you.”

Laurent leaned forward in his seat, his elbows on the table. “Will you hear what I have to say first?”

Auguste gave him a long look. “If I must.”

“You’ve played this game long enough,” Laurent said once he knew the words would come out steady, “and you’ve had no victories. If you give him what he wants—”

“Are you his little herald now?” Auguste said, the mocking tone of his words cutting Laurent into silence. _Little one_ , Laurent heard in his head. “He’d kill me even if I gave him the throne and exiled myself to Patras or Akielos. Or Vask.”

Laurent did not bother telling him he agreed. He said instead, “You wouldn’t last a day in Vask.”

“I won’t discuss this with you, Laurent. You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“And you do?” Laurent said. “You’ve failed. Aimeric and Paschal’s testimonies meant nothing to the Lords. Did you honestly think they’d believe Damianos’s word against their king’s?”

Auguste said nothing.

“You have no allies here, no witnesses. You only have a letter in his handwriting that proves nothing. If you give up now, he’ll—”

“Forgive me? Let me live?” Auguste said. He was looking at Laurent in a strange way, a slight tilt to his head and a sharp edge to his gaze. “I’m sure he will, only to have me beheaded the moment I turn around.” He leaned back into his seat, the wood creaking as he did. “Let me ask you a question.”

Frustration was turning Laurent’s face red. He could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks, the anger fogging his mind. He wanted Auguste to stop talking, to let him explain. _Destroy us all_ , was what he’d been about to say right before Auguste had cut him off.

“I don’t see the point.”

Auguste said, “Indulge me, then.”

Laurent found no reason to refuse. Auguste’s attention on him had always felt like this: coaxing and imperative. He nodded once and waited.

“You know about Aimeric now,” Auguste said. Damianos had told him. “Doesn’t that change anything for you?”

 _You know how some boys are_ , Uncle had said, pouring the first cup of wine, _how eager. I thought it would do more harm than good to refuse his advances. But it wasn’t the same. Of course, it wasn’t._

Of course.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Laurent said, because it was easy. It gave nothing away.

Auguste ran a hand over the table as if wiping it with an invisible rag. The wood was uneven, cheap. The boards had not been polished or even sanded, and so there were splinters everywhere one chose to touch. Yet Auguste seemed immune to them, his fingers dancing across the wood with ease.

They were quiet for a while. Laurent thought the conversation would die there, that Auguste would rise from his seat and command him to leave.

But Auguste said, “You’ve never liked to share. It must be difficult for you, coming to terms with the idea that you weren’t—” He stopped, avoiding Laurent’s gaze. His face was flushed and pale at the same time. “I always thought that once you knew the truth, you and Aimeric would be—”

“Friends?” Laurent said. He pretended to think about it for a second. “And what would we discuss, given how little we have in common?”

Laurent thought of saying it out loud, what they were both thinking. He imagined Auguste’s expression, the horror etched onto his features as if someone had stitched the emotion into his skin, and, incredibly, that was not what stopped him from speaking the words.

It was his own shame, rising inside him like a wave that threatened to drown him. It was his own disgust at what he and Aimeric had both been, what Laurent still was, in a way.

Auguste’s reply, when it finally came, was weary. “You are impossible to talk to,” he said. “I don’t know why I even bother.”

“Then don’t talk,” Laurent said. “I only need you to listen, for a change.”

Since there were no cups or pitchers for Auguste to busy his hands with, he settled for toying with the laces on his sleeves, tugging at them absent-mindedly, as if by doing so he could pretend Laurent wasn’t there.

This was one of the only things Father had disliked about Auguste. He’d comment on it from time to time, perhaps hoping to embarrass Auguste into breaking the habit, but instead of ducking his head in shame, Auguste would wring his hands more furiously, laughing. Always laughing.

“He will question you today,” Laurent said. “Thoroughly. He thinks you will make a mistake if he pushes you hard enough, and you will.”

Auguste was staring at him now, his laces long forgotten.

“When he asks me to testify, you must—”

“No,” Auguste said. Even though Laurent hadn’t been the one who said it, he felt the metallic aftertaste of the word in his own mouth, like blood. “No. I don’t want to hear another word about this, Laurent. I’m warning you.”

Laurent ignored him. “You have to play your part and look distressed, which should not be a problem since that is your usual state. He’ll relax if he thinks he’s winning, and when he—”

“I said no.”

The back of Laurent’s eyes burned. He hadn’t cried in years and he was not about to do it now, but the frustration was too much, too prickly. He’d never wanted to hit Auguste as much as he did now, to batter him into silence.

There was a low sound coming from somewhere, a scraping of sorts, and it took Laurent a long time to realize it was him, grinding his teeth into dust.

“Will you,” Laurent said, “for once in your life, shut up and listen to me?”

Auguste stilled for a second. There was a shout from outside the tent, quickly followed by laughter. The sound brought Auguste’s frown back, as well as his need to speak over Laurent.

He opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “How do you know he wants to question me?”

“So far, all he’s done is defend himself against your accusations,” Laurent said. “He hasn’t started attacking yet, but now that your defense is weak…” _Shattered_ was the word Laurent had been about to use. He added, “You lack credibility. Your witnesses lack respect.”

“Credibility and respect,” Auguste said. “Since when are those things more important than the truth?”

This was why beating Auguste at chess was easy. He only focused on his own movements, on his side of the board, similar to how Nicaise refused to cheat at cards or bend the rules of the game at his will. They were both convinced they would win, that their skill would be enough.

“But you haven’t told the truth,” Laurent said. “Not all of it, at least.”

“And you will?”

Laurent kept his expression purposefully blank. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Auguste was on his feet then, laughing. He sounded off-key, like a lyre in dire need of adjustment. “You toy with me again. No, I won’t let you disgrace both of us like this. You are dismissed.” A pause, so brief it was like an intake of air. “And you are to stay here today. Lazar will see to it.”

“He will ask for me, Auguste. What will you tell him when he does? That I’m sick or injured? That I’m away?”

“You _are_ sick if you think I have no reason to distrust your intentions.”

“My intentions,” Laurent said.

But Auguste did not explain himself further. Instead, he circled the table, coming to a stop next to Laurent’s—or rather, Lord Guillaume’s—seat. He smelled of soap and leather, but also of the scented oil he’d gotten used to rubbing into his beard.

It had been some time since they’d been this close without others around, and Laurent was suddenly too aware of the small distance that separated their bodies.

“Did Damianos tell you what Aimeric was asked?”

“No,” Laurent said. “But I’m not Aimeric. They won’t ask me the same questions.”

Auguste was looking down at him, his beard so thick it hid his mouth away. One of his hands was resting on the table, the other one was a fist by his side.

“Why would he ask you to testify against me?” Auguste said slowly. “He wouldn’t ask unless he was certain that you would lie for him.”

Another round of laughter from outside. It died down gradually, but Laurent found himself thinking about it long after it was gone. _Joyous men_ , he thought, and wondered if he would ever be one of them. If Auguste would ever laugh like that again.

“He wouldn’t publicly ask you to be his witness if he hadn’t told you what to say beforehand.”

Laurent remained quiet. It did not matter if Auguste knew or not—if he refused Laurent’s help he wouldn’t live long enough to punish anyone. Yet Laurent couldn’t bring himself to be the one who said it out loud, the one who pushed this knife deeper into Auguste. He waited, silently, for Auguste to speak.

“Did he give you—” Auguste stopped. His mouth was still curled around the last syllable, the last sound. Then, “No. He wouldn’t risk writing you a note, not after last time. He asked you to meet him somewhere.”

“At the castle,” Laurent said. Now that the truth was out, the words fought against each other to try and escape his mouth. “I arranged it, or so I thought. He was hoping I would seek him out, that I would be—”

“You went to see him.”

“—angry enough at you to consider him as an ally. All we did was talk,” Laurent said in a haste. It was only after saying those words that he realized how bitter he felt about them. “He told me what to say, how to act. And I told him I’d do it, that I couldn’t bear to be on your side knowing what you had done.”

Laurent could feel Auguste pulling away, retreating, and that was something he could not allow. Not now. He got a hold of Auguste’s wrist to keep him from leaving.

Auguste looked down at the place where their arms met. His face showed nothing but disgust.

“He said you murdered Mother and Father,” Laurent said, tightening his grip on Auguste. “He said all those treats you used to give Mother while she was sick were infused with poison, and that Father—”

“Did Damianos help you?”

Laurent blinked.

Prying Laurent’s fingers off his wrist, Auguste said in the same monotone voice as before, “Did Damianos help you meet up with Uncle?”

“No,” Laurent said. “He doesn’t know about that, but that isn’t the point, Auguste. I’m trying to—”

“Take off your shirt.”

Auguste walked towards his bed, crouched in front of his trunk, and rummaged through it in complete silence. He was methodical about it, taking things out one by one, laying them down on the mattress as he continued his search. A candle, a vest, a chessboard.

Eventually, he stopped, glanced at Laurent, and said, “I told you to take your shirt off.”

Laurent’s stomach dropped. He saw the crop in Auguste’s hand and for a moment all thought abandoned him. There was only this: the leather loop of the lash perfectly fitted around Auguste’s wrist.

“I—”

“You swore,” Auguste said, and his voice was unlike anything Laurent had ever heard before. “You promised me you wouldn’t talk to him. You promised me I could trust you. And I believed you, like the fool I’ve always been.”

Wildly, Laurent thought of Benoit. He couldn’t get up and away fast enough. There was nowhere to run. Just the thought of running felt foolish, for it was obvious Auguste would catch him.

“It wasn’t—”

“I do not care,” Auguste said. He came closer. “Make me repeat myself again, and you will be sorry. Take off your shirt unless you do not mind it being ruined.”

“Auguste.”

Auguste’s expression was enough to force him into action.

Laurent’s numb fingers found the laces of his shirt. He shrugged it off and, standing up from his chair, folded it. It was only after he was done that he realized his hands were not shaking.

This tent wasn’t as warm as Damianos’s and the cold nicked him everywhere all at once—his belly, his arms, his lower back. The terror that was slowly building in him felt hot as a furnace, which kept him from shivering.

He thought of explaining, and only then realized there was nothing to explain. _Tell me what your plan is_ , Damianos had said. But there hadn’t been a plan, just the blind hope that Uncle would listen, that Uncle wouldn’t be all Auguste had said he was.

The plan hadn’t started to form in his head until after he’d drank his cup of wine and Uncle hadn’t moved to touch him.

Auguste held the crop tightly, his knuckles white around the handle. His face was fury, all other expressions burned away.

“Bend over.”

Laurent complied, pressing his forehead against the warm wood of the table. This he knew how to do. Fear let go of his tongue for a second, and the reply made its way out of his mouth before he could even think to stop it. “What a terrible choice of words, brother. Pray no one has heard you.”

Ignoring him, Auguste said, “Ten. You’re going to count them out loud.”

Ten. Laurent had only ever been slapped across the face. He could not even begin to imagine what a lash would feel like, let alone ten. Still, he said, “Or what?”

“Or you’ll get five more.”

 _I’m a prince_ , Laurent thought, _and he’s my brother_. Auguste would not go through with this madness, he couldn’t. Any moment now a cold hand would touch Laurent’s shoulder, dragging him away from the table and this shameful position—elbows on the coarse wood, legs slightly spread apart. Any moment now.

He wondered if Kastor had thought the same thing. Had he thought he would be rescued?

“You should start now,” Laurent said, “before I fall asleep.”

Instead of replying, Auguste brought the crop down.

Laurent heard it, the loud and terrifying prelude to pain, a hissing sound. He braced himself for the impact, his muscles tensing. His eyes closed at the last second as if by doing so the blow would hurt less.

But nothing happened.

The leather tip of the crop was cold against the nape of Laurent’s neck. It wasn’t warm or sticky with blood. It felt mercifully clean.

Slowly, Laurent drew himself up and away from the table. The leather tip stayed pressed against his nape, but it wasn’t long before Laurent felt its tremors.

Auguste’s hand was shaking.

Laurent did not dare turn around and face him. There was a part of him—small, minuscule—that was afraid Auguste would strike him across the face if he did. He tried to speak but his voice stayed away. He felt breathless, as though he’d been running through an open field for hours or riding his mare with all his might.

Auguste’s breathing was messy, interrupted. Laurent could barely hear it over his own throbbing heart, but it was there.

“You will win this if I tell them,” Laurent said when the silence had become unbearable.

“You lied to me,” Auguste said. He was standing closer than Laurent had suspected. When he spoke again, his voice was unrecognizable. For a second, Laurent thought this was not Auguste at all, that someone else had broken into the tent, that someone else held the crop. “All you have ever done is lie to me. And now you are asking me to trust you? To allow you to testify against me?”

The leather tip slipped down, following the path of Laurent’s spine, and stopped at his lower back.

“I’m telling you the truth now,” Laurent said, his eyes on the table in front of him. _He will not strike, he will not strike, he will not—_ “I could have kept quiet about this. Doesn’t that count for something?”

Auguste laughed sharply. Laurent never wanted to hear that sound again. “There must be something to be gained,” he said. “Why are you telling the truth now? You said so yourself, you could have followed me today and testified when he asked you to. Why warn me about what’s to come if you knew I would try and stop you?”

“Because I know you. You wouldn’t have allowed me to speak if you thought I would do so in his favor. You would have done something stupid.”

“Like what?” Auguste said. “What could possibly be more stupid than letting you sit there and lie for him?”

 _Like getting yourself killed_ , Laurent thought but did not say it.

Instead, “Think about it for a moment, Auguste. If you forbid me to go, he will still find a way to win without me and you will die. If I’m truly a traitor and I testify against you, then you will also die. What do you have to lose?”

The crop was suddenly gone. Involuntarily, Laurent tensed, listening, and when the loud hissing sound came again he flinched without meaning to. Again, the pain stayed away.

As he turned around, Laurent saw that Auguste had thrown the crop against the cloth wall.

“You will stay here,” Auguste said, looking anywhere but at Laurent’s face. His eyelashes, usually the color of wheat, looked darker. Wet. “Put your clothes on. Now.”

Without the fear of the crop fogging his brain, Laurent found it easier to stand his ground against him. “No,” he said. “I have to go with you today.”

“Be quiet.”

“Do you want to die?” Laurent said. He didn’t give Auguste time to answer, too scared of the words that might come out of his brother’s mouth. “Do you want me to—”

“I want you to stop talking,” Auguste snapped. “If you think they won’t ask you what they asked Aimeric, you’re a fool. This is a game to them, and I will die when they tire of it. Let me—” He stopped. Perhaps he’d realized how the words had come out. Like a plea. “I can’t bear to think of them asking you such questions. Dying means nothing to me, but that I can’t allow. I won’t allow it.”

 _He’s unwell._ Laurent wondered what Aimeric was thinking of, cooped up in Paschal’s tent. Perhaps he wasn’t licking his wounds and trying to recover, as Laurent had previously thought. Perhaps there were wounds that never healed.

“You won’t die if I do this for you.”

“You don’t know that,” Auguste said. He was moving away from Laurent, again. “You don’t know _anything_. You were stupid enough to believe his lies, were you not? You went to see him, just like he wanted you to.” He hid his face in his hands. For a split-second, Laurent thought he might cry. Instead, he laughed. “I had men guarding the path to the castle. I asked Damianos to look after you. I—”

“Auguste.”

“And you have the nerve—to ask—”

“ _Auguste_.”

Auguste rubbed at his face furiously. When he lowered his hands, Laurent saw that his cheeks were red. “I raised you and tried to—and you—” He stopped, unable to speak through his breathless giggles.

For the first time in his life, Laurent thought Auguste mad.

“You need to listen to me. You aren’t thinking clearly.”

“Clearly,” Auguste said, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “Do you even listen to yourself? I should have had you dealt with. I should have—” He paused to breathe. “Put your shirt—on.”

“No,” Laurent said.

Auguste grabbed his face, fingers digging into the soft flesh of Laurent’s cheeks to the point of pain. When Laurent tried to squirm away, Auguste tightened his grip.

“I may not be Uncle, but I am your king,” Auguste said. “And you will do as I say.”

“Or what? You’ll threaten to whip me again?”

Auguste shoved him against the table, hard enough that Laurent’s back felt like it had been set on fire. Not even bothering with a reply, he walked away, making it to the entrance in three long strides. Laurent thought he was about to leave, but instead, Auguste stuck his head out and, loudly, called Lazar’s name.

Laurent wasted no time getting dressed. He knew how fast Lazar was and did not want to be caught in the middle of lacing up his clothes, knowing what this would look like to any man. As Laurent shrugged his shirt on, Auguste’s nerves seemed to calm on their own, slowly, until silence reigned once more in the tent.

He was tying the final knot when Lazar came in, straight-backed and blank-faced, looking only at Auguste.

“Your Majesty,” Lazar said. His eyes widened at the color of Auguste’s face, but he knew better than to comment on it.

“The Prince is not to leave this tent today,” Auguste said in his kingly voice, the one he used at meetings or to speak to the court in Arles. He had never spoken like this to any member of the King’s Guard, especially not Lazar. “If he does, I will not flog or maim you. I will have your head.”

Lazar’s throat worked as he swallowed. The movement was almost audible. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Lazar.”

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Have the men hone my sword,” Auguste said. He did not wait for Lazar’s reply, stepping out the tent as though he was leaving no one behind.

Lazar stood there for another minute, watching the entrance, and then turned to face Laurent for the first time since he’d arrived.

They stared at each other for a long time, neither of them moving or attempting to start a conversation. Lazar was looking at Laurent attentively, as though Laurent possessed the skill to disappear into thin air if he was not watched.

If Lazar noticed the crop lying on the floor, he said nothing of it. Laurent did not feel the need to explain either.

It was only when Lazar broke his perfect posture to scratch his beard that Laurent realized this was probably the last time he would see Lazar alive. Something about the gesture reminded Laurent that Lazar was a man like any other, like Benoit and Guion and every other mortal who had met his fate under Auguste’s wrath.

“Are you hungry, Your Highness?”

“I’m thirsty,” Laurent said. “I bet you are, too. Wouldn’t you like a cup of wine?”

“No,” Lazar said.

In the silence that followed, Laurent considered his options. Lazar had a sword and was fast on his feet. He wasn’t drunk. He knew what he was risking if Laurent walked out of this tent.

“Tell me a joke,” Laurent said, advancing. He did not stop until he was standing directly in front of Lazar, who did not smell nearly as pleasant as Auguste had. “Now.”

Lazar blinked. “Er,” he said.

“You don’t know any?”

“A woman was about to give birth to her firstborn son,” Lazar said. He was still looking at Laurent strangely. “Her midwife, candle in hand, lifted the woman’s skirt to see if the baby was coming.”

Outside, men had stopped laughing. All that could be heard was the wild gallop of their horses and Auguste’s shouted orders.

“The woman said, ‘look also on the other side because my husband sometimes likes to—’”

Lazar saw the blow coming. He stopped it without effort, his fingers closing painfully tight around Laurent’s wrist. When he twisted Laurent’s arm, it took everything in Laurent not to scream.

“Let go,” Laurent said through gritted teeth. The pain was hot, traveling up his arm so that even his shoulder hurt. “Let go, you bastard.”

Lazar did.

Rubbing at his sore wrist, Laurent said, “Was that necessary?”

“I believe it was, Your Highness.”

The entrance was too far away. Even if Laurent somehow managed to get out, Lazar would follow him and alert the whole camp. It was either to convince Lazar to let him through, or to hurt him bad enough so that he could not stop Laurent.

There was no bow here, no arrows. A quick look around the tent told Laurent there was little to be used. How badly could a book hurt a man like Lazar, who was covered in scabs and grime and scars?

“Fine,” Laurent said, walking towards the table. He grabbed the pitcher of water and a cup. After a second, he grabbed another one.

Lazar started, “I don’t—”

“You said no wine, this is water. It isn’t poisoned, in case you were wondering.”

Head-whirring, Laurent poured the water into the cups. He was so focused on thinking, he accidentally spilled some liquid onto the wood.

“Here,” Laurent said as he grabbed the cup and lifted it. He waited until Lazar had taken a step towards him to turn around and, as swiftly as he could, dump the water on his face.

Lazar spluttered, and his hands went to the hilt of his sword. He’d barely managed to unsheath a couple of inches when Laurent hit him across the face with the golden cup. Blood poured from Lazar’s nose, making him cough.

Laurent brought the cup down again, this time making sure to hit Lazar’s temple. He tried to hit him a third time, but Lazar kicked his knee, hard, and so Laurent was forced to retreat.

Holding his nose, Lazar said, “For fuck’s—”

The chair to his right was light enough for Laurent to lift. Everything happened in a red blur: one of the legs of the chair breaking as Laurent hit Lazar with it, the sound of Lazar going down on his knees, the flash of steel as Lazar drew out his sword.

And then Lazar was lying fully on the floor, on his stomach, while Laurent held the broken chair with both hands.

The sound of the horses from outside was fading, and so was Auguste’s voice. As he tried to listen, Laurent thought of how to proceed. He considered using Auguste’s sheets to tie Lazar to the table but decided against it in the end. He wanted Lazar to stand a chance against Auguste, to be able to run when he woke up, and he knew that tying him up would do more harm than good.

Laurent touched Lazar with his boot like he’d done to Damianos that same morning. Lazar, thankfully, did not stir. Had it not been for the slow rise and fall of Lazar’s back, Laurent would have worried.

Leaving the tent was risky. It was obvious that Auguste hadn’t only left Lazar behind, which meant that at least two other guards were at the entrance. There was no other door to walk through, no secret passage that led to the stables where Laurent’s mare awaited.

It was only when he looked down at Lazar that he realized what he had to do.

Lazar’s sword was heavy when he picked it up, but not impossible to manage. In his head, Laurent had a whole map of the camp sketched out, which showed him that going through the east side of the tent meant he wouldn’t have to cross the bonfire in order to get to the stables. The east side was usually deserted during the day.

The cloth gave in easily, Lazar’s sword cutting through it like a knife sinking into warm butter. Checking that there was no one around, Laurent stepped through the new hole and out into the camp. He held his breath and waited, for surely someone had seen it, someone was coming.

A minute passed and then another. Nobody came.

The run to the stables made him feel giddy, childish. As he ran, his mind supplied a collection of memories long ago forgotten and covered in dust: Auguste running after him in the palace halls, the thrill of the chase as Laurent hid in cupboards and closets. He did not think for a second about the other guards or the fact that he still had Lazar’s heavy sword with him, slowing him down considerably.

When Laurent finally stopped to think of those things, he’d already made it to the stables, which weren’t watched during the day.

Once in his saddle, Laurent dropped the sword on a pile of hay, telling himself Lazar would be able to find it later. It was not as though he needed it right now, passed out on Auguste’s tent as he was.

Riding through the camp was different than running towards the stables. All eyes were on him now, heads turning, mouths opening to shout. Laurent paid them no mind, tightening his hold on the reins and kicking his mare to go faster, something he’d never done before.

She whined, and Laurent said, “I know.”

He saw Pallas running, not towards him but towards the tent. Antoine was watching it all with a frown.

He had almost made it out of the camp when he saw Jord, half-running, half-crawling in the opposite direction Laurent was going. There was something in his hands, but Laurent was riding too fast to see exactly what it was. Jord’s mouth moved, calling for Paschal.

Laurent’s eyes found Paschal’s old tent—the one Aimeric had stolen from him—but could not see anything out of the ordinary about it.

With one last kick, Laurent rode into the forest.

*

Laurent stared at the sun above him. It seemed to take up all of the sky, which was cloudless that day. Aesop had been the one who’d taught him how to tell the time by watching the sunlight, and so Laurent guessed there was still an hour to midday. Auguste hadn’t left long ago, and so the trial was most likely only now starting.

The courtyard was deserted and so were the gardens. Laurent circled the fountain three times, barely resisting the urge to call Nicaise’s name out loud. He searched in the rose bushes, frantically, telling himself Nicaise was just playing with him, that he was hiding here somewhere.

Under the watchful gaze of the statue boy, Laurent left the gardens and headed towards the kitchens. He’d only been there once with Nicaise but he still remembered the way. First came the long corridor, the dark one, and then the open bailey, followed by a series of rooms where all the grain and oils were kept. There were few guards here and they all ignored him as he ran past them, one of them whistling once he thought Laurent couldn’t hear him.

There were four cooks in the kitchens, slicing turnips and meat and stirring soup. Nicaise was not hiding under the big oak table.

 _There’s still time_ , Laurent told himself as he tried to find his way through this stone maze. He knew Uncle’s rooms were here, for he’d asked the other night. _They are such a mess_ , Uncle had told him, trying to sound apologetic, _I’m afraid I cannot show them to you tonight._

But it hadn’t been the mess that had worried Uncle. It was Nicaise, awake and waiting for him. He hadn’t wanted his boys to mingle more than necessary.

Laurent twisted doorknobs as he went, but all the doors were closed to him. Again he thought of calling Nicaise’s name.

A loud and dull sound coming from one of the closed rooms made Laurent stop his frantic roaming. He held in his breath and pressed his ear against the wooden door.

“—don’t know,” a muffled voice was saying. “I don’t—know.”

The reply was too low for Laurent to hear.

He tried the doorknob, and for a second thought it had worked, that the door would open, but the handle got stuck as he twisted it.

Laurent paused. He could not afford to draw attention to himself, and so rattling the knob until it broke or someone decided to open the door for him was simply not an option. Kicking it open was off-limits as well, for Laurent was aware that he did nos possess Damianos’s thighs and calves. He would most likely break his own foot.

“—have it here. I don’t—”

In a sudden burst of inspiration, Laurent’s hands flew to his hair. The barrettes were still there and, in his haste to get one of them off, he pulled so hard his scalp was left tingling.

The pin was golden and sturdy, but Laurent twisted it with ease. He stuck it inside the keyhole and slowly, very slowly, moved it around. A clicking sound followed, and then another. Laurent’s hand was clammy around the knob.

Pushing the door open without making a sound was difficult but not impossible. The moment Laurent heard the hinges starting to squeak he stopped, let a second pass, and then tried again.

The room wasn’t dark. Sunlight was coming through the open window. Everything in it was red, from the curtains to the tapestries on the wall. A four-post bed with burgundy bedding took up most of the space, but there were also soft-looking chairs and a fine, dark wooden table. On the wall opposite Laurent, there was a painting: boys dancing around a fire without clothes on.

Govart was standing by the bed, his back turned to Laurent. He was slightly bent over, talking in a low voice. His words sounded like grunts.

“I know you took it,” Govart said. “No one else comes into my rooms.”

The sound of bells was the only answer he received. Now that Laurent knew what to look for, he saw what he’d missed before. Govart’s legs were spread wide enough for Laurent to see Nicaise’s milky ones, flailing.

Govart was pressing Nicaise’s face into the silky bedding, smothering him. After a while, he jerked Nicaise’s head back, pulling at his curls hard enough to make the boy cry out. 

“Give it back,” Govart said as Nicaise drew in breaths desperately. “You fucking thief, give—”

Nicaise writhed. “ _I don’t have it_.”

Govart pushed him back onto the mattress. With his free hand—the one that wasn’t tangled in Nicaise’s hair—he grabbed one of the red pillows to his right. He put it over Nicaise’s head and pressed down.

“I’m going to fuck it out of you,” Govart said, and even though Laurent couldn’t see his face, he had a feeling the man was smiling. “That’ll show him not to touch my things.”

Laurent moved without thinking. His feet took him towards Govart, who was still babbling to Nicaise, and his hand moved on its own. It found the handle of the dagger he’d been carrying around all day, closed around it, and pulled it free.

Nicaise’s screams were muffled—both by the pillow and the bedding—but still loud enough to cover Laurent’s footsteps and the sharp intake of breath he took before sneaking an arm around Govart’s neck.

Govart let go of the pillow, said, “What—”

Laurent drew his arm back, slitting Govart’s throat in the process.

Nicaise had scrambled from the bed and was now kneeling on the floor, gasping for air. He was looking at Govart, who was clutching at his throat as though that would somehow close the wound.

At fifteen, Laurent had seen a horse being put down. It had been Huet’s, strong and loyal but deathly sick. Auguste had forbidden Laurent from watching, sending him to bed without dinner when Laurent wouldn’t stop pestering him about it. But Laurent had snuck out of his rooms and into the stables to witness the event anyways, kneeling on the dirt and the hay to get a better view as Paschal put an end to the animal’s life.

Huet’s horse hadn’t cried or whined, he’d been too sick for that. He’d bled to death from a long cut Paschal had given it, right across his belly, and he’d looked calm as if he were slowly falling asleep.

Govart, on the other hand, thrashed around the room, blood seeping through his fingers and coating the front of his shirt and pants. The wooden floor soaked the blood thirstily, its polished boards turning from light brown to dark red. There was nothing calm about Govart’s movements, nothing that made watching pleasant. And so Laurent looked away.

Govart was kneeling. Laurent could hear him crawling towards the door, but before he could react Nicaise was on his feet, shoving the door closed to keep Govart from seeking help from any passerby.

“—get you,” Govart said, gurgling, choking. He’d made it to the closed door, still on his knees, and was now pressed against it, his hand smearing it all with blood as he fumbled with the knob. “Going to—”

And then he said no more. He slid down to the floor and sat there, his eyes fixed on Nicaise without really seeing him. He did not draw another breath.

Laurent and Nicaise stared at each other.

“You need to leave,” Laurent said, lowering the dagger. It was dripping blood on the floor.

Nicaise looked at Govart, at the dagger, at himself. The front of his once white camisole was now red and sticking to his chess, the fabric almost see-through. When his eyes met Laurent’s, there was anger in them.

“No,” Nicaise said. He still sounded out of breath. “ _You_ need to leave. These are _my_ —”

“There are my uncle’s rooms,” Laurent said. “Not yours. And when he buys another boy to warm his bed, they will still be his rooms and not the boy’s.”

It was only when Nicaise started walking towards him and leaving small, red footprints on the floor that Laurent realized the ridiculousness of the situation.

He’d killed a man. For the first time, Laurent looked down at his hands. There was drying blood on his right one, around his knuckles. Even the pad of his thumb was sticky with it.

Nicaise slipped on the blood and, to keep from falling, held onto one of the bedposts. He looked at Laurent as if daring him to laugh.

“I killed him,” Laurent said. His voice did not feel like his own.

“Of course you did,” Nicaise said, annoyed. “But I did what I was asked as well. I would have killed Govart if he had asked me to.”

Somehow, Laurent doubted it. He decided against mentioning that if he hadn’t walked, NIcaise would be dead. Or worse.

“Anyone could have killed Govart,” Nicaise went on saying. “He won’t be proud of you for it. He doesn’t even like—”

“What were you asked to do?”

Nicaise took a step back, and said, “Nothing.”

The smell of iron was making Laurent nauseous. He thought of telling Nicaise to open a window or the door, and almost laughed at the idea. His fingers had gone numb around the golden handle of the dagger, yet he could not bring himself to loosen his grip, to drop the blade.

“You took something from Govart,” Laurent said.

He did not have to worry about Nicaise making a run for the door, for Govart’s body was blocking the way and Nicaise would not be able to move it on his own. That alone allowed Laurent to relax and focus on the questions he wanted to ask.

Nicaise huffed. “I’m not a thief.”

“It was valuable,” Laurent said. He thought, _To both of them_. Why else would Nicaise steal it, whatever it was? “Govart was desperate enough to come here to get it back.”

And there was something else, too. Something Govart had said…

“I’m not a thief,” Nicaise said again.

Laurent ignored him. “You took it from his rooms. What were you doing there?”

Trying to get away from Laurent, Nicaise circled the bed. His belled anklets chimed as he went, filling the room with eerie music. He tried to hide his face behind a bedpost but wasn’t fast enough. Laurent saw the red in his cheeks like a stain.

Aimeric had bent over for Auguste’s messenger under Uncle’s orders. He’d blushed like this, too, when Laurent had asked him about it.

“Nicaise,” Laurent said.

“I didn’t take anything from him. I don’t have it.”

“Nicaise.”

“And he’s dead,” Nicaise said. The pitch of his voice was high, bird-like. “It’s mine now. _Don’t_ ,” he added hastily when he saw Laurent move towards him. “If you hurt me, he—”

Slowly, Laurent said, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Silence. Laurent realized dropping the dagger was no longer an option, even if he did not intend to use it. He also realized time was passing, minute by minute, and that he was wasting it by standing here with Nicaise instead of being at the trial. That was why he had come here, not to chat with a boy.

Nicaise’s eyes flickered to the bed. He tried, and failed, to keep his face impassive when he looked at Laurent again.

Laurent climbed on the bed, avoiding the wet spot of Govart’s blood, and ran his hand along the edge of the mattress, which was thick and worthy of a king. His fingers brushed against something—coarse, leather-like—and then Nicaise was hitting him, a rain of small fists pouring over Laurent’s arms.

It was hard not to press the dagger into the naked skin of Nicaise’s throat, right over his necklace, to get him to stop. It was hard, and that scared Laurent.

“It’s not yours,” Nicaise said. He sounded like he was screeching, but Laurent’s ears were buzzing and so he could not be sure. “Give it back, give—”

Laurent pulled back and away. He tried to avoid the wet spot on the bed again and failed, his brown pants staining at the knee. Belatedly, he realized both his hands were full; he was holding Damianos’s dagger and a book.

Nicaise circled the bed and slammed into him. He was all knees and elbows, a spindly thing that twisted and writhed trying to get Laurent to drop the book. At one point, Nicaise leaned in and sank his teeth into Laurent’s shoulder hard enough that Laurent felt the sting even through his shirt. He slipped on the blood again when Laurent pushed him, falling to the floor.

“It’s _mine_ ,” Nicaise said, defiant. “I didn’t steal it.”

“You can’t even read.”

Laurent opened the small book on a random page and paused. It was a journal, bound in leather. There were certain spots that seemed melted, scorched. The words glared at him, written in dark, black ink. _Two tablespoons_ , it read at the top.

The loop of the L was painfully familiar.

Nicaise got up and tried to snatch the journal away. He gave a pathetic jump when Laurent held it out of his reach and over his head. “It’s mine,” he tried again. His eyes and lashes were wet. “If you steal it he will cut off your head.”

“It’s no crime to steal from a thief.”

“I’m not a thief,” Nicaise said. Another jump. “Give it back now or I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Laurent said. _Two tablespoons._ He hadn’t managed to read _of what_. “Cry? Offer to suck my cock?”

Nicaise moved forward, teeth bared as if to bite again. Laurent shoved him away.

“I came here to warn you that he’s going to get rid of you,” Laurent said. “He told me so the night I came to see him. Grab whatever gifts he has given you over the years and leave. If you trade those rubies for gold, you’ll have enough to buy a horse and a—”

“You’re a liar.”

Laurent knew he was about to be cruel and did not care. This was mercy, he realized. To tell Nicaise the truth, not out of jealousy or spite, but because he knew what would happen if he didn’t. This was what he should have done with Aimeric.

“He’s grown bored of your eagerness. He said to me: ‘Nicaise was a poor child on the side of the road who begged me to take him in. I only did it because he reminded me of you.’ You’ve been here for years.” Laurent paused to watch Nicaise’s face, to make sure he was listening. “And you know too much. He won’t simply send you away, Nicaise.”

They were both silent.

And then Nicaise said, “Give it back and I’ll leave.”

It was just a journal, and yet… “Let me read it first,” Laurent said. “Do you know what it says? Did he tell you?”

Nicaise scowled. “No.”

Laurent tightened his grip on the journal and opened it. Most of the pages were torn off or blank, but there were some that remained, yellow and brittle despite the high quality of the paper. It wasn’t new, Laurent realized.

Finding the page he’d tried to read before was hard, especially because he had to move every once in a while to make sure Nicaise couldn’t reach the journal. At last, he found it and ran his fingers over the letters.

_13th — H. Two tablespoons diluted in milk._

_16th — H. Too bitter. One tablespoon, add honey._

_24th — H. Three?_

_12th — H. Bleeding. Keep below four. Honey helps with the healing, add sugar instead._

_29th — H. Five tablespoons._

_30th — H. Five tablespoons._

_1st — H. Five tablespoons._

_5th — H. Five tablespoons._

_29th — H. Six tablespoons._

The list cut off abruptly. There was only one last scribble on the bottom margin. _30th. H. Gone in the night._

“You’ve read it,” Nicaise said. He was tugging at Laurent’s sleeve. “Now give it back.”

Laurent ignored him, turning the page. His fingers traced the letters, a neat row of _A_ s that went all the way down to the lower margin. It ended on a similar note: _4th. A. Gone._

Two pages later there was another list. Shorter and messier. _HK, NE, AC_.

Laurent closed the journal and slipped it past his belt. He held the dagger up for Nicaise to see, in case he’d forgotten about it, and said, “Leave tonight, before he realizes what’s happened.”

“No,” Nicaise said, and his voice broke. His face turned a strange shade of white. “No. You said you’d— _no_.”

“He won’t forgive this. Do you understand? He’ll think you’ve been on my side this whole time, that I’ve tricked you into helping me.”

Nicaise said nothing.

“You’re too old,” Laurent said. The words tasted like ashes in his mouth. “And you’re a traitor now. Tell me you understand.”

Nicaise’s eyes were on the dagger. “I understand.”

“If you can’t find a horse to buy, take my mare. She’s on the west side of the forest, tied to a tree-trunk. Do you know how to ride?”

“Yes,” Nicaise said, obviously lying.

Laurent regarded him for a moment. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t. That’s what the saddle is for.” He paused, looking around the room. “You also need to change. Those clothes are ruined and they draw too much attention. Take off your earrings and—”

“Why? You want to take those from me as well?”

Bickering with Nicaise was exhausting. Instead of replying, Laurent walked over to the big wardrobe and opened the first drawers. There was lace and silk and velvet, nothing a boy could wear and not be stared at. Laurent opened the second drawer, and the third, and the fourth.

At last, Laurent threw a white shirt and a pair of pants at Nicaise. They were bright green, which was not in any way discreet, but they’d have to do. Now all that was missing were the shoes.

Nicaise looked at the clothes in his hands with disdain, and said, “I don’t want to wear these. Red suits me better.”

“Red will get you killed,” Laurent said sharply. “He knows you’re a stupid child who will make stupid choices. Red is a color he’ll expect.”

“I’m not stupid.”

Laurent’s chest hurt. He focused on finding the pair of shoes he’d seen Nicaise wearing the other day in the gardens and tried to breathe through his mouth so the stench of blood would not make him queasy.

“Here,” Laurent said, handing him the shoes.

Nicaise was struggling into the pants. He’d discarded his bloody camisole but hadn’t put on the shirt Laurent had given him. At this rate, it’d take him hours to get dressed if he had to deal with the laces on his own.

Laurent took a step forward to help him, and Nicaise took one step back.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You already tricked me once,” Nicaise said. He looked strange wearing pants

While Nicaise put on the clothes and fumbled with the laces and the buttons, Laurent moved away from the wardrobe and towards the door. Ideally, hiding Govart’s body would buy Nicaise some time, had it not been for the blood all over the floor. Laurent did not try and pretend he could drag Govart’s body anywhere.

The only important thing was moving Govart away from the door, and Laurent had almost managed to do that when Nicaise slammed into him for what felt like the thirtieth time that day, his clammy hands trying to snatch the journal away.

This time Laurent hit him across the face, which in turn made Nicaise smile. “See? You’re a lying liar. You said you wouldn’t—”

“Ride south,” Laurent said. “Try and make it to Delfeur.”

“Why? What’s in Delfeur?”

Only then did Laurent realize what he’d been about to reveal. “Nothing,” he said. He looked down at the dagger, wanting to offer it to Nicaise but knowing he couldn’t. “Where’s my mare?”

“On the west side of the forest,” Nicaise said.

“Good. Take off your earrings.”

Laurent was already in the hallway when he heard Nicaise’s reply: a loud, angry _‘fuck off_ ’.

*

Laurent stopped by the fountain to clean himself. He rubbed his hands together under the water, trying to get rid of the blood. His pants were dirty as well, especially at the knee, but Laurent soon found that water was not enough to get rid of the stain. He rubbed for what felt like hours, until his hands felt chapped, and then gave up. He’d already lost too much time.

He dropped the dagger into the water. It sank to the bottom in seconds, Govart’s blood tainting it all red.

The main hall was mostly empty except for a few guards wearing red cloaks. They didn’t try to stop Laurent from going into the room everyone was gathered in, not even nodding when he walked past them.

Trying his best to be quiet, Laurent pushed the heavy oak door open and looked inside.

Auguste was sitting on a chair in front of the Lords, his back turned to everyone else in the room. His hair was getting long in the back, its blonde ends curling at the nape. He’d worn it long once, but never again after being crowned. From the door, Laurent couldn’t tell if he was fidgeting or if his breathing was shallow. He looked the same he’d always looked to Laurent: impossibly far away.

Damianos was alone, his back also turned to Laurent.

Uncle was talking. If he’d heard Laurent open the door, he gave no signs of it. “Forcing that young man to give testimony is proof enough of my nephew’s desperation,” he said. “He’ll go to any lengths to hide the truth.”

Lord Peire said, “His Majesty has told the truth as he sees it. There is no crime in that.”

“Of course not,” Uncle agreed. He only had eyes for the Lords. “I don’t mean to presume your memory fails you, Lord Peire, but in case the tediousness of this trial has somehow managed to blur your thoughts… Let me remind you what my nephew has been accused of.”

“As if they could forget,” Auguste said. “Present your proof and let us be done with this.”

Uncle ignored him. “I couldn’t help but notice that yesterday you had so much to say about my inclinations. It surprised me, considering we share most of them.”

“The only thing we share is blood, to my dismay.”

“What inclinations, Your Majesty?” Lord Touars asked.

“Auguste has a fixation. No,” Uncle said, pausing. “That isn’t the word. I believe an obsession would be more fitting.”

Auguste offered a dry laugh. Lord Jasque flinched in his seat at the sound. “Is this a grammar lesson?”

“He’s always been unnaturally close to his brother,” Uncle said as if Auguste had not spoken at all. “I didn’t think much of it when I lived in the palace. After all, how can a man expect the worst from his family? From his King?”

“I ask myself that daily, uncle. But I guess some secrets are not revealed to us in this life.”

 _He has surrendered,_ Laurent thought. It wasn’t obvious, not in his posture or in his voice, not to those who did not know him. But Laurent had never heard Auguste speak like this, so carelessly, without fear of interruption or disrespect. He was a man who spoke his mind because he knew nothing could change his fate.

“Of course,” Lord Rolant said. “Your Majesty, you mustn't blame yourself.”

Laurent thought, for a fleeting moment, that he might be sick.

“Go on,” Lord Jehan said. “His closeness with his brother is not a charge on its own.”

“I found them together,” Uncle said. His face showed a disgust his voice was not mirroring. “Because I had uncovered such a shameful secret, my nephew tried to have his personal guards capture and, eventually, kill me. I managed to escape—”

“Must we listen to the obvious? Had you not escaped you wouldn’t be standing here, delighting us all with your presence and words.”

“—with barely any possessions. But that isn’t what troubles me. The Prince was barely thirteen years old when this occurred, but who knows how long he’d endured Auguste’s attentions? The thought keeps me awake at night, for if only I had known…”

Lord Touars sighed. It was an empathetic sound.

“Do you have proof of this?” Lord Jasque said. “This is a serious accusation. We can’t be expected to condemn a man to the sword if all we have is your word.”

“Yes,” Lord Jehan said. “It isn’t pleasing for me to agree with a northerner, but in this case…”

“There were two witnesses,” Uncle said. “But I’m afraid one of them is dead.”

Lord Rolant’s frown made him look like a toad. Loudly, as if that would clarify things, he said, “Dead?”

“Auguste,” Uncle said. “Shall I be the one who tells them about Victoire?”

To that, Auguste said nothing. Uncle let the silence stretch, savoring it.

At last, he said, “He was my nephew’s betrothed. In an attempt to quiet the rumors about him and the Prince, which we all now know to be truths, he sought to marry a woman.”

“A woman whose family was being paid weekly,” Auguste said. “By you.”

“Why would I—”

“She was one of your little birds. She wrote you letters in exchange for gold.”

Lord Touars said, “And your proof? Where is it? Must I imagine it?”

Slowly, Auguste rose from his seat. He reached into his vest and held a paper in his hands. It looked brittle and thoroughly read, and just the sight of it made Laurent ache.

Lord Touars took it from him, greedily. Not a second had passed before he started reading it out loud. “ _Dear cousin, all is well_ —’ That does not sound like a letter addressed to His Majesty.”

“Well,” Auguste said. He was still standing. “Did you expect her to write his full name? Perhaps she should have signed it as _Sincerely, a traitor_.”

“Give it here,” Lord Rolant said, taking the letter from Lord Touars, who let out an offended huff. “ _All is well in Arles. My King surprised me today with a courting gift, a beautiful necklace of… and yet the weather… for I have seen…_ ” He stopped. When he spoke again, his voice was louder. “ _The little Prince is a delight to be around, as you said he’d be. I cannot wait for you to see him at the wedding, which is to be celebrated next winter. I did as you asked and approached him, to try and make him understand the importance of one’s family._ ”

“Where is the—”

“Keep reading,” Auguste said.

“ _The King is not fond of wine, but he does seem to favor certain fruits. I have made you a list of the delightful foods he enjoys, for I am sure they will turn you green with envy. The Prince eats off of his brother’s plate, but that should not be a problem. Not to you. I trust—_ ”

“That proves nothing,” Lord Touars said.

“— _that you will know what to do. Your mercy knows no limits. I am in your_ —”

“A week after I found that note,” Auguste said, “I fell ill. A whole platter of fruits had been poisoned. My brother only had a fever, but my recovery was slower and more tedious. Once I realized what had happened, there was simply no other option but to let my uncle know how I treat those who betray me.”

Laurent held onto the doorway. He remembered that autumn, the way Auguste had seemed weaker, frailer. But he’d told Laurent not to worry, that it was only to be expected after what had happened with the spear. He’d told Laurent it was a mere cold.

“What happened to the girl?” Lord Peire asked. “Was there a trial, like the one Councillor Guion faced?”

“No,” Uncle said. “Auguste doesn’t believe in trials or justice. He believes in bloodshed like animals do. Of course there was no trial. He had the girl hung and—”

“You haven’t denied the accusation,” Lord Jehan said. “Your Majesty.”

“If I had to deny every lie that comes out of my nephew’s mouth I’m afraid we would be here until the sun set.”

“Hanging is such a merciful death,” Lord Jasque said, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “More than a traitor deserves.”

“There was more to it,” Uncle said. He sounded excited. “Before hanging her, the man who calls himself your King had her—”

“Enough,” Auguste said, and his voice seemed to fill the entire room.

Lord Peire was the first to speak again. “If what His Majesty says is not true, why would he have the girl hanged? If there was no treason, what was the reason behind the execution?”

Uncle smiled. “It is obvious,” he said. “She found herself in the same position as me, years back. Perhaps she opened the wrong door, turned at the wrong corner, and came to discover the true meaning of monstrosity. After all, how long can a man hide his true nature? How long can a man hide that he enjoys bedding his own brother?”

Auguste did not bother with a reply. He turned around to go back to his seat and stopped, abruptly, when he saw Laurent plastered to the door.

His stillness did not go unnoticed. Soon enough Uncle was turning around as well, following Auguste’s gaze until his eyes, too, landed on Laurent.

“Ah,” Uncle said. “My other witness has arrived.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: foul language, threats of rape, mentions/discussions of abuse, violence (extra trigger warning for blood), graphic character death (canon-compliant), mentions of violence against women. If you believe I should add any warnings, please let me know in the comments.
> 
> Hello dearies! I'm sorry for the long wait. Before sharing some fanart with you and other cool stuff, I'd like to apologize for not tagging this work properly. 
> 
> I started writing this story around May and I was convinced I would only write 10 chapters. The story I had in mind back then was nowhere near as heavy or "dark" and so I only tagged the main warnings (such as PTSD, CSA, and Grooming). This was obviously a mistake on my part. I kept telling myself that once I was done posting the last chapters I would go back and add TW at the beginning of each chapter (or at the end, as I did here, so as to not spoil anything should the reader choose to ignore my suggestion). 
> 
> There is really no excuse for not tagging a fic correctly, and so I have added a tag that reads "Read the notes for an extensive list of trigger warnings". If you go back to the very beginning, you'll see said list (in alphabetical order and without spoilers). This mistake was kindly and respectfully pointed out to me by a reader, whom I want to thank. I am deeply sorry if reading this story has caused you any distress or negative emotions, for that was not my intention at all. If you feel like any warnings are missing, please let me know and I will add them in the following days. Again, I'm sorry. I hope you can forgive me. 
> 
> Now to the actual note:
> 
> \- [Here's a beautiful drawing of Auguste and Laurent by aceedoodles!](https://aceedoodles.tumblr.com/post/628834565727928320/%F0%9D%94%A0%F0%9D%94%AC%F0%9D%94%AA%F0%9D%94%A2-%F0%9D%94%AA%F0%9D%94%AC%F0%9D%94%AF%F0%9D%94%AB%F0%9D%94%A6%F0%9D%94%AB%F0%9D%94%A4-%F0%9D%94%A9%F0%9D%94%A6%F0%9D%94%A4%F0%9D%94%A5%F0%9D%94%B1-%F0%9D%94%B6%F0%9D%94%AC%F0%9D%94%B2-%F0%9D%94%9E%F0%9D%94%AB%F0%9D%94%A1-%F0%9D%94%A6%F0%9D%94%A9%F0%9D%94%A9-%F0%9D%94%9F%F0%9D%94%A2-%F0%9D%94%B0%F0%9D%94%9E%F0%9D%94%A3%F0%9D%94%A2-%F0%9D%94%9E%F0%9D%94%AB%F0%9D%94%A1) It's beautiful and I think it's amazing to remember that once upon a time these two brothers loved each other, haha. Also, Auguste's beard...
> 
> \- [Heather drew this beautiful Lamen scene. ](https://heatherdrawings.tumblr.com/post/629032586480664576/show-chapter-archive) It's full of details, so I encourage you to take a moment to really stare at it. Damen and Laurent's faces are really something else! 
> 
> \- I'm guessing the next chapter will be up in a few weeks (no more than three, I hope) and so I want to leave a link to another fic I've read this week for you to enjoy in the meantime. It's called [Love is not for show](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26129950) by Nxxilah. It's very sweet and the writing is awesome! I also want to let you guys know that if you have any favorite WIPs you can send me the link (on tumblr or in a comment) and I'll check them out when I have a free second. 
> 
> \- Over the last few weeks I've received some incredibly sweet asks on Tumblr, and I just wanted to thank you all for reaching out and letting me know you enjoyed this story! I haven't replied to most of them (I like to hoard compliments, I know it's awful) but please know I've read them and appreciate them beyond words. Thank you.
> 
> \- Did you understand the bit about the journal? I'm nervous that I have made it all so obvious... and yet I know sometimes I take the obvious for granted. Just wanted to let you know that in case it wasn't obvious enough, things will be explained next chapter.
> 
> There is so much more I want to say, but I'm afraid this is already too long. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you're doing well! <3 Thank you for your support.


	25. Twenty-three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please check the warnings at the end before reading this chapter.

**Twenty-three**

Laurent did not move from the door. It wasn’t fear that kept him there, quiet and pressed against the wooden frame like one of Paschal’s butterflies, but rather the way Auguste was looking at him.

He knew Damianos was looking at him too, and so was Uncle, but Laurent could not be bothered to turn his head even the slightest bit. Not when Auguste’s eyes on him felt the way he imagined Damianos’s dagger had felt against Govart’s throat.

Uncle took a step in Laurent’s direction. He was about to take another one when Auguste’s hand closed around his elbow, keeping him in place. This was the first time Laurent had seen them touch.

“Don’t,” Auguste said. His fingers were very white against Uncle’s purple jacket. “There’s no need for this.”

Uncle said, “I think there is.”

Laurent advanced. He had almost made it to where they were standing when Damianos got in the way, holding him back by the wrist.

By then the Lords had already started to whisper, and Laurent felt their eyes on him like hands. Unbidden, his mind went back to Aimeric, who’d crawled his way here on his own without a brother to protest for him, or a friend to try and stop him. And Aimeric had wanted to be stopped, this Laurent knew now. He’d wanted it so badly Antoine had lost a finger.

“What are you doing?” Damianos said. He was so broad across the shoulders Laurent could not see anything but him. “This morning, you said—”

“You promised to leave when I asked you to,” Laurent said. “This is me asking.”

Damianos frowned with his whole face—eyebrows touching, mouth pulled downwards—and said, “Auguste was right, after all,” he said. “You’re here for him.”

_I’m here to help_ , Laurent almost said, but then remembered that Uncle was in the room, listening. It would not do to reassure Damianos. Or Auguste. By twisting his arm, Laurent managed to free his wrist from Damianos’s hold, and once his skin had stopped tingling, Laurent could think clearer.

“Will you go back on your word?”

“Laurent.”

“You promised me you’d leave,” Laurent said. “You said you trusted me.”

“I won’t let you do this to Auguste,” Damianos said, so sharply he did not sound like the Damianos that had pressed kisses to Laurent’s palms earlier that day.

“—in all fairness,” Uncle was saying somewhere behind Damianos. “You cannot deny me this.”

Auguste’s reply cut through every other noise in the room—the Lords’ whispers, Damianos’s shallow breathing, the whining of the door as it closed—and filled Laurent from head to toe with viscous fear.

“I will call myself guilty if you put an end to this travesty.”

There was a pause in all the conversations in the room. Laurent shouldered past Damianos, trying to move forward even when he was grabbed by the waist and held back one more.

Uncle said, “No. You will bear this shame, the way you have forced us all to bear it for you. Do not make this harder on your brother.”

Auguste’s eyes were on Uncle’s face. “Let me speak to him first.”

“I don’t believe that is fair,” Lord Touars said, clearing his throat. “You could threaten the Prince into changing his testimony.”

“The Prince needs to see a physician,” Damianos said, startling them all into silence. Despite his size, it was easy to forget about him, for his voice was seldom heard in this room. “There is blood on his face.”

In a daze, Laurent touched his cheeks. His hands came away clean, most likely because Govart’s blood had already dried on his skin. He’d washed his hands desperately, only to forget about his face.

“It isn’t mine,” Laurent heard himself say.

Uncle saw his opportunity and took it. “Did you encounter trouble on your way to us? Auguste can’t harm you here. You can speak honestly.”

Damianos stilled against him.

“I—yes,” Laurent said. “There was trouble. A guard tried to stop me.”

Auguste’s expression darkened, became something different and indescribable. What wild tales was he telling himself about Lazar? A part of Laurent—small, wilted—wanted to laugh at the thought of Auguste believing he had murdered Lazar. And yet the rest of Laurent still remembered Auguste’s barbed replies a few days ago, how he’d thought Laurent had whipped Aimeric to death.

“A recess?” Lord Peire said, sounding strangely meek. “Perhaps it’d be good to—”

“No,” Lord Rolant said. “Let the Prince speak now.”

Lord Touars added, “His Highness should not be made to wait.”

“His Highness is unwell,” Damianos said. His chest was plastered to Laurent’s back, and so Laurent felt the vibration of every word he spoke, every breath he took. “Do you wish him harm?”

“Of course not,” Lord Touars said, not at all pleased that he had to speak to an Akielon. “But the blood isn’t his. What wound does he bear?”

“Are you a physician, Lord Touars?” Auguste asked him.

“No, but I—”

“Then be quiet.”

“I’m fine,” Laurent said. “May I, uncle? I want to speak.”

Uncle offered his hand as if to pull him in for a hug. When Laurent lifted a hand to meet his, Auguste moved to stand between them.

“Laurent,” Auguste said, and raised both hands as if to touch Laurent’s face, only to let them hang by his sides a second later. “Don’t do this to me.”

But Laurent ignored him, keeping his expression as closed off as possible, scared that Uncle would be able to read any slight twitch of his brow, any pull of his mouth.

At last, Damianos’s hands were slowly disappearing from his hips, leaving behind nothing but a dull ache where the skin had been crushed. Laurent squirmed free and, sidestepping Auguste, walked towards the empty chair that faced the Lords.

Uncle’s hand met his shoulder and squeezed. He did not remove it even after Laurent had sat down, the cold of his fingers seeping into Laurent’s skin despite the layer of cloth his shirt provided. It took everything in him not to shiver.

Laurent could hear the hushed discussion between Damianos and Auguste behind him and the furious and suddenly cut off footsteps, but he could not make out who was holding back who. He kept his eyes on Lord Touars’ head, imagining how an arrow would look like coming out of it.

The armless chair had not been designed to lounge on; Laurent’s back was beginning to ache. The room had no windows, Laurent noticed, and so the air felt heavy, twice-breathed.

With the excuse of turning his head to look at Uncle’s face, Laurent sneaked a glance at Auguste. He was still arguing with Damianos, attempting to push him towards the door. It occurred to Laurent then that perhaps Auguste carried his own shame, too. Perhaps it was not out of duty to Laurent that he wanted Damianos out of the room.

“Will you sit down, Auguste?” Uncle said. “If King Damianos wishes to stay, he is more than welcome to. It’ll do him good, I believe, to see you in a different light.”

The only response was the loud slamming of the door, echoing through the room in ripples. A single pair of footsteps followed that sound. Then came the whining moan of wood as a chair was moved.

“Remember this is your prince,” Auguste said. Laurent assumed he was looking at the Lords. “I advise you to pick your questions carefully.”

Uncle touched the nape of Laurent’s neck. His hand was cold, but Laurent’s skin was colder. This did not feel like it had the last time, at thirteen. Laurent’s neck was wider now, longer, yet Uncle’s hand had remained the same. It was as though years had only passed for one of them.

Lord Touars said, “We will ask what we see fit.”

Uncle retrieved his hand at last and, with one last reassuring smile, walked back to his own seat. Laurent found himself missing his presence, the feel of a body close to his, and hated himself for it.

It would not do to fidget. Laurent folded his hands on his lap. And waited.

“Your Highness,” Lord Rolant said, flushing. Laurent doubted it was from shame. “I trust that you understand what binds me to ask you this, for I would never wish to offend—”

Impatient, Lord Touars said, “His Highness knows, Lord Rolant. He is not a child to be coddled.”

“Speak, Laurent,” Uncle said, and he sounded almost gentle. “It’s always best to lead with the truth.”

“I,” Laurent said, and stopped.

Lord Jasque cleared his throat after a moment. The pause had gone on for too long. “Your Highness, for years now there have been certain rumors about the nature of your relationship with your—His Majesty.”

“The _incestuous_ nature of it,” Lord Touars corrected.

Laurent heard and felt and saw the change in the room. The table hid the Lords’ laps from view, and Laurent wondered if their cocks were hard already. He knew about the pet rings in Lys, about the public consummations in Arran. What was this if not another show to be enjoyed?

“Have you lain with your brother, Your Highness?” Lord Peire asked at last.

Laurent wanted to look at Auguste and couldn’t. He wondered if Auguste was looking at him.

“No,” he said. That word tasted strangely sweet. “I have not.”

Lord Touars frowned. “Not willingly, of course. But perhaps he forced you, Your Highness?”

“Have you not heard him? His Highness has denied the accusations. What better witness then the alleged victim himself to—”

“I feared this would happen,” Uncle said, not sounding afraid at all. In fact, his voice was so smooth and calm, unbroken, that it made Laurent’s heart stutter in his chest. “I knew it was a possibility, and yet… I refused to believe it.”

Lord Peire opened his mouth to speak, but Uncle’s footsteps silenced him. He had risen from his seat so quietly Laurent had not heard him.

“He was such a sweet boy, but it is clear his brother has managed to poison his mind.”

“The Prince is under threat,” Lord Rolant said. “It is obvious.”

“Where is your proof of that?” Auguste said. There was mockery in his words, but it came out weak, diluted. “Must I imagine it?”

Uncle came to a stop next to Laurent’s chair. He did not put his hand on Laurent as he’d done before. “I will only ask you once more, Laurent. Speak truthfully.”

“I have,” Laurent said.

“Here is my proof,” Uncle said. There was something in his hand, a yellowed paper that looked translucent against the light. As if procured by a magic trick. “Of all the charges against my nephew.”

Lord Touars was the one who received it. He unfolded the paper and set to read. No one asked him to speak up, to share what was in the note, and in the silence that followed the knot Laurent’s stomach had become only tightened.

Once he had finished, Lord Touars leaned back in his chair and handed the note to Lord Rolant. The note slowly made its way to the left end of the table, finally stopping its journey when it reached Lord Peire’s hands.

Lord Peire’s eyes flickered to Auguste only once before he put the note down on the table.

“Will I be forced to guess what the note says?” Auguste said. “I’m the King of Vere, not a Seer from Vask.”

“You shouldn’t have to guess,” Uncle said, “considering you’re the one who wrote it.”

Laurent turned his head so he could look at Auguste. There was nothing on his face that gave away his worry, and yet Laurent felt it like another presence in the room, like a ghost. It surprised him, stupidly, how good his brother had gotten at keeping his emotions off his face.

Or perhaps Laurent had gotten worse at reading him.

“Do you know Lord Berenger of Varenne, Your Majesty?” Lord Jasque asked.

Auguste blinked. “I do. We’re acquaintances, have been for years.”

Lord Touars said, “Delightful. Do you correspond with him often?”

“Since when is it a crime to—”

“Perhaps we should refresh his memory,” Uncle said. “Lord Peire, would you be so kind as to read a fragment of your choosing?”

Lord Peire did not move to touch the note. “Of this letter?” When Uncle nodded, a blush spread across his face, turning it the color of berries. “I couldn’t possibly—I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to—”

Auguste finally cut off his rambling. “What does the letter say?”

“It’s a confession,” Lord Touars said, “of all the crimes you stand here accused of. Addressed to Lord Berenger and dated five summers back.”

“It was the only thing I was able to take with me from the palace,” Uncle said. His hands were clasped behind his back, which gave Laurent a perfect view of his golden ring. “I’d had my suspicions for a while, and once I came across this letter I knew them to be true. But the timing is seldom right.”

“It isn’t his,” Laurent said. “Ask him to write something, anything, and you’ll see. It’s not—”

“Your Highness,” Lord Rolant said. He was having trouble holding Laurent’s gaze. “The letter is clear about your—limitations.”

“Dispositions,” Lord Touars corrected. “Your brother brags about your training in thorough detail.”

“My training,” Laurent said.

“He even had a physician involved.”

“From Patras,” Lord Jehan said.

“Is that a lie, Laurent?” Uncle said, not even turning to look at him as he spoke. “Wasn’t there a physician your brother forced you to see?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

Uncle tsked. The sound made Laurent’s spine straighten. “There is a line I have studied over the years.”

“Read it,” Laurent said, aware of the heat under his skin. Even the back of his neck felt flushed.

“I know it by heart,” Uncle said. “‘ _And should the day come for me to need saving, I know my brother will do as I tell him to keep me from harm, for he is desperately_ —’”

“Stop,” Auguste said.

“‘— _and stupidly in love with me_.’”

Laurent dug his nails into his thighs, forcing himself to stay in the chair and pay attention to what was happening. The pull to drift away was there, but Laurent ignored it in favor of savoring the pain that traveled from the pads of his fingers to the muscles of his legs. He pressed harder, wishing there was a way to claw at the skin underneath the fabric of his pants.

“It is obvious that the Prince’s word can't be trusted,” Uncle said as if Auguste had never spoken. “He’s been asked to deflect. Who knows what other outrageous lies he is hoarding?”

Slowly, Laurent’s brain caught up to what those words meant. It was too late to tell them the truth, he realized, for they would not believe him. The last of Auguste’s defense was being torn down, piece by piece.

“He’s unfit to rule,” Lord Rolant said.

“He’s the Prince,” Lord Jasque replied. “We haven’t even established if this is His Majesty’s handwriting.”

“There’s a quill and some ink to your right, Lord Touars,” Uncle said, pointing at the far end of the table. “I happen to have some paper.”

“How terribly convenient,” Lord Jehan said. Laurent was too ashamed to feel any surprise at the tone he was using.

Auguste rose from his seat slowly as if he was doing all of them a favor by simply existing in the same room as them. He took the piece of paper from Uncle’s hands and headed towards the Lords’ table, where he picked up the quill and dipped it in the inkpot. His hands were not shaking, not even slightly, and Laurent felt the shame rise inside him again—Auguste wasn’t afraid, but Laurent was.

“How many lines should I write?” Auguste said, quill still in hand. “Do you reckon two will suffice?”

Lord Rolant took the paper from him and reached for the other note on the table. Theatrically, he held both of them up, side by side, for the Lords and all of them to see. It did not surprise Laurent to see that it was Auguste’s handwriting in both of them. _My uncle is a pig_ , read the one Auguste had just produced.

“It could be forged,” Lord Peire said.

“Of course it is forged,” Auguste said. “As if I’d be stupid enough to confess to murdering my parents and sleeping with my brother _in a letter_.”

“The handwriting is the same,” Lord Rolant said.

“The handwriting was the same, too, when I showed you the note my uncle gave to King Damianos’s brother.”

“And we did accept it as proof, did we not?”

“I want to read my alleged confession letter,” Auguste said, reaching out to Lord Rolant so as to snatch the paper out of his hands.

But Lord Rolant was faster. He moved away at the last second, and said, “I will gladly read it out loud. It is vile, absolutely foul, but if it must be done…”

“Read the last part,” Lord Touars said. “It is simply revolting.”

“No,” Laurent said, fumbling with his shirt as he tried to get to the journal. “You should read this instead.”

Uncle’s stare was pitying. “Laurent, you don’t have to go along with your brother’s game any longer. Whatever trick he’s devised—”

Laurent’s fingers closed around the burnt leather. “You killed Mother and Father.”

“The Prince is unwell,” one of the Lords said. Laurent could not tell which one it was. “He is deeply disturbed. Is he supposed to be the next King?”

“He poisoned Mother first,” Laurent said, more to Auguste than to anyone else in the room. “It took him months. He kept adjusting the dosage of the poison so it wouldn’t be noticeable, so it would look like a common illness.”

Lord Touars said, “No proof… such lies and no proof.”

Laurent considered throwing the journal at his head. He opened it on his lap, his fingers trembling so badly he could barely thumb through it to get to the important pages. Once he was sure he would not drop it, Laurent held the open journal for them to see.

“He tried hemlock on Auguste’s wine a few times,” Laurent said. “And for Mother and Father, he saved arsenic, which is why Paschal couldn’t tell it apart from—”

“—the Vaskian Fever,” Auguste said.

Uncle’s eyes were on the journal. He was careful not to let his anger show, but Laurent had spent a year curled up at his feet, studying his face, trying to learn exactly what displeased him so he could avoid it. Uncle was furious.

“All I see is a bunch of—of letters,” Lord Peire said, frustrated. “I want to understand, Your Highness, but how—”

“And nightshade,” Laurent said, cutting him off. He tried to find the letters on the paper. _NE_. “It was what King Damianos’s brother used to poison my brother’s horse. Under my uncle’s orders.”

“Poison is for the weak and craven,” Uncle said.

“It suits you perfectly then,” Auguste replied.

“He confessed,” Laurent said. It was foolish to lie like this, and yet his panic was too great for him to stop and think. He couldn’t breathe through it. “He told me once what he’d done.”

“I highly doubt His Majesty would share such information with a child,” Lord Rolant said. “And even if he had, which I do not think is the case, that would make you a traitor, Your Highness. To keep quiet all these years and—”

“Exactly,” Lord Touars said. “Are you a traitor, Your Highness? Perhaps you helped him.”

Uncle’s mouth was pressed tight. “Enough. The letter is clear about the Prince’s involvement, as well as mine.”

“The letter is not mine,” Auguste said, “but I can’t help but wonder how you could have found it if it were. It’s a crime to steal from one’s King. Did you go through my drawers, uncle?”

“You’ve always been disorganized, Auguste. You left it out, confident no one would dare—”

“I don’t think I did. Lately, it seems like my letters are in the habit of getting lost. It’s clear to me now that you’re the one behind that scheme as well.”

_He said any would do_. “You stole it,” Laurent said, “so you could forge his handwriting.”

Uncle’s expression did not change. “Oh, Laurent,” he said. “You have no idea how much it pains me, to see you grown up like this. I wish I had taken you with me, if anything to spare your mind.”

Lord Touars interrupted whatever Auguste had been about to say. “There is little to do now but deliver. We need time to think.”

“Another day,” Lord Peire added. He looked miserable. “Midday tomorrow, perhaps, we could gather again.”

“For the last time,” Lord Rolant said.

“The trial has gone on for long enough.”

Uncle touched his chin. The ruby of his ring reminded Laurent of Govart’s open throat, a gash so wide and deep the pearly whiteness of the bones could be seen in it. He said something, but Laurent could not hear what.

Laurent rose from his seat with legs that felt unsteady under him. To keep his balance, he held onto the back of the chair with both hands, breathing so shallowly it was a wonder any air was entering his body at all. The back of his neck felt damp and hot, and when Laurent touched it he found that the skin was wet with sweat. Panic closed around him like a cloak, for he thought maybe it wasn’t sweat at all, but blood.

And then Auguste was there, holding him up. They were moving, the room around them changing as Auguste dragged him towards the door. A blink later they were standing in the hall, where Damianos awaited. Auguste said something and Damianos answered him, yet Laurent’s ears felt too stuffed for him to make out the words.

Laurent’s eyes could not focus. He tried, at first, to count stones on the walls and tiles on the floor, but the numbers evaded him, twisting like wisps of smoke until Laurent could not tell them apart.

Fresh air and sunlight slammed into him, real as a wall. He was in the courtyard.

“—to go,” Damianos was saying from somewhere. “I don’t see his mare.”

“He’ll ride with me.”

Just the thought of settling into a saddle to ride made Laurent’s stomach clench. He staggered forward a step or two when the urge to vomit became too strong but was stopped by Auguste’s hands on his shoulders.

“I’ll be right behind you,” Damianos said. “Are you sure you can—”

A voice to their backs cut him off. “I’d like a word with you, Auguste.”

Laurent tilted his head back slightly. The sun was so bright it forced his eyes into slits, but Laurent welcomed the uncomfortable burn. It helped him focus.

“If my uncle has a message for me,” Auguste said, “let him be the one who delivers it, Lord Jehan. I won’t hear it from you.”

“It isn’t a message so much as a proposition.” A pause. “And it isn’t your uncle’s.”

Damianos’s hand met Auguste’s on Laurent’s right shoulder. “I’ll take him back to the camp,” he said and squeezed. “Stay and do what you must here.”

The pause that followed was so long Laurent was certain Auguste would refuse. But then Auguste’s hands left his shoulders as more words were exchanged, seconds slipping through Laurent’s fingers no matter how hard he tried to hold onto them.

He let himself be guided forward. Damianos’s horse was bigger than he remembered, so black he seemed made out of charcoal. While Damianos removed the saddle, Laurent focused on the braids in the animal’s hair. He leaned forward without thinking and pressed his cheek to the horse’s shoulder.

Damianos was talking to him. He talked as he helped Laurent up, as he wrapped his arms around Laurent to reach the reins. He talked and Laurent allowed it, staring at the blur of stone and banners and trees.

Once in the forest, Laurent turned his head and focused. Relief bloomed in him when he couldn’t see him mare anywhere.

They were about to reach the camp when Damianos pulled at his reins, hard, and forced his horse to stop. The path ahead of them was clear, no bandits or scoundrels to be wary of, no dangers to be seen.

Laurent tilted his head to look at Damianos’s face just in time for him to say, “How badly did you hurt Lazar?”

“Enough for him not to follow me,” Laurent said. His throat and mouth were dry to the point of pain. Every word he spoke felt like a piece of sandpaper rubbing against his tongue, scraping it raw.

“Is he dead?”

Laurent did not reply right away. Lazar had been breathing when he left, and the wounds had not been mortal. “I don’t think so,” he said at last. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” Damianos said, as though by saying the words himself he could give them a new meaning.

A second later they were riding again, faster, through the last barrier of trees and into the camp.

Laurent’s haze was mostly gone by then. The rush of fresh air on his face and the solid weight of Damianos’s body against his own anchored him to that moment, turning his muddy thoughts into clearer, sharper versions of themselves.

Auguste’s men were gathered in small groups, facing the path as if waiting for their king to return from war. They whispered and elbowed each other in a manner that reminded Laurent of the courtiers back in Arles, who’d choose gossip over a warm meal even on the coldest winter night.

It was impossible for someone to remember all those names, and yet Auguste probably did. Laurent had never heard him address any of his men as anything but their given name. Out of all of them, a group of perhaps forty, Laurent could only recognize Antoine.

Damianos dismounted. He put both hands on Laurent’s waist like he had at the castle and helped him off the saddle.

One of the men stepped forward and towards them. He said, “Your Highness, there is terrible news to be delivered to His Majesty. We were hoping he’d be back with you by now.”

_Lazar is dead_ , Laurent thought. He’d killed two men in the span of one morning, and only one of them had deserved it. The weight of that thought made him sway, slightly enough that no one noticed except for Damianos, who was yet to take his hands off of Laurent’s waist.

“What news?”

The man’s eyes flickered to the ground. “Your Highness,” he said, and paused. Then, like an exhale of air: “Lord Guillaume is dead.”

Laurent blinked. “No, he isn’t. He was breathing when I left.”

“Barely. His fever would not break, according to His Majesty’s physician. His body is still in his tent, should His Highness wish to—”

“Shut up,” Laurent said. He looked over the man’s shoulder, a hundred eyes staring back at him. “Why are _you_ telling me this? Where’s my brother’s Captain?”

“Laurent,” Damianos said.

But Laurent could only think about one thing. His feet moved over the soil, the wet grass, the mud. When had it rained?

As he advanced, the sea of men parted, letting him through. Everything was silent, and no matter how much Laurent strained his ears, he could not hear whistles or jokes, not even a poorly concealed cough. It was as though they were holding their breaths.

He’d almost made it to Lord Guillaume’s tent when Damianos caught him by the wrist, forcing him to stop walking. Laurent turned around to face him with so much force his head was left spinning.

“He’s dead, Laurent. There’s no need for you to see him like that.”

“He’s not dead.”

Damianos gave him a long look. “They wouldn’t lie about this. That man you left behind was Lord Guillaume’s first squire. He spoke honestly.”

“Let go of me,” Laurent said, twisting his arm so Damianos would free his wrist. It was not working.

“Not until you’ve calmed down and listened to me.”

“Like you listened to me? ‘I promise, Laurent, I’ll do as you say, I trust—’”

Damianos said, “Don’t.”

Laurent tried to shove him away with his left hand, but Damianos was fast. He got a hold of that wrist as well, cradling Laurent’s hands to his chest to keep him from striking again. The fabric of his chiton was velvet-soft against the naked skin of Laurent’s arms.

When had Laurent rolled up the sleeves of his shirt?

“Go ahead,” Damianos said. “Put your ear to his chest and see if his heart’s still beating. Waste whatever time we have left to plan your brother’s rescue playing games.” He let go of Laurent’s wrists and took a step back. “Do it all alone and fail again.”

To argue that he hadn’t failed felt like too much effort. It would also have been a lie.

Laurent turned away from him and slipped into the tent instead.

Lord Guillaume’s tent was smaller than Laurent’s, but it was better furnished. There were chairs, tables of all sizes, and trunks both open and closed. A pitcher of water had been left forgotten on the floor, next to a bucket filled to the brim with vomit.

The lump on the bed was covered by a sheet. Laurent walked up to it, breathing through his mouth even though he knew, rationally, that bodies did not start to rot until after some time had passed. The day was warm, but not stifling hot. There was no reason to assume the stench of death was here already.

Once he was standing by the bed, Laurent peeled the sheet back, not giving himself a second to think it through, to panic.

Lord Guillaume’s eyes were open. There was dried vomit on his chin, mixed with what could only be blood, and his skin was the color candle wax. Mother had looked like this too, those last mornings Laurent had been allowed to see her.

Laurent touched Lord Guillaume’s cheek with the pad of his fingers. The skin was cold and stiff, so taut it made Lord Guillaume look younger. No blush appeared when Laurent pressed his fingers into the flesh and withdrew his hand. No breaths came or went.

Was this what Auguste would look like?

The tent flaps opened. Laurent saw the faint sunlight darting inside timidly, and then the shadow of Damianos’s legs as he advanced. He was careful to avoid the bucket and the pitcher, Laurent saw, and came to a stop behind Laurent, leaving barely an inch between their bodies.

Damianos grabbed the end of the sheet Laurent had dropped at some point and covered Lord Guillaume’s face with it. The body on the bed became a lump again, and if Laurent didn’t look at it too closely he could almost pretend there wasn’t a body at all, but pillows.

Damianos pressed his thumb to Lord Guillaume’s forehead through the cloth. He kept it there for a moment before drawing a shape Laurent had only seen in books.

“He’s Veretian,” Laurent said. “We don’t—”

“I know,” Damianos said quietly, “but he is a long way from home, isn’t he? He can’t be buried here.”

_They’ll burn him tonight_ , Laurent thought. The smell of Aimeric’s burning hair was still etched into his brain, the memory so sharp it did not feel like a memory at all. It conjured up other questions Laurent did not want answered, did not want to ask.

Govart was not highborn. Why would Uncle bother with a pyre or a traditional burial, when he could simply have him fed to the hounds or thrown in a pit somewhere to rot? And yet… the dream-like image of a scorched Govart came to Laurent, so real he almost made the mistake of taking a step back.

Perhaps at last he would stop dreaming about Kastor, and face this ghost instead.

“Come,” Damianos said. He was already herding Laurent towards the entrance. “You look sick.”

The first thing Laurent did once he’d made it outside was breathe. Clean air filled his lungs to the point of pain and then was gone. Laurent counted his toes in his head, wiggling them inside his boots, and stared at the sky as he’d done earlier in the courtyard. The sun could not reach him, but its warmth was still there.

Damianos was standing behind him, his hand already folded around Laurent’s elbow. He said, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Auguste only has two votes now.”

The guards were still gathered in groups, talking. They’d glance in Laurent’s direction occasionally, but their eyes would only linger on him—on both of them—for less than a second before straying again.

“He can delay the verdict,” Damianos said. “All he has to do is explain how Lord Guillaume died and send out word for another Lord to take his place.”

Laurent looked him in the eyes for the first time since they’d walked out of the tent. There wasn’t malice there, like Laurent had expected. If anything, Damianos’s eyes were widely honest. He believed what he was saying.

“My uncle won’t allow it,” Laurent said. “He’ll say Auguste had Lord Guillaume killed, that he’s been planning this for days.”

“Why would Auguste—”

“He knew he’d lose, and so he did this, desperate to stretch the trial.”

Damianos squeezed his elbow. “Everyone knows that isn’t true.”

“It doesn’t matter what everyone knows,” Laurent said. _Credibility and respect_ , he thought, but did not bother speaking the words out loud, knowing Damianos would not understand them. “He’s going to die. Maybe Lord Peire and Lord Jasque won’t even bother voting in his favor.”

“Your brother selected them,” Damianos said slowly. “They’re loyal to him, Laurent. I’ve heard them defend him during the trial.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter either way. Two votes aren’t enough to win this. Not even three would have sufficed.”

“Then he’ll come with us,” Damianos said, in Akielon. He always sounded firmer in his mother tongue, as if the words had been perfectly designed for his mouth. “We’ll need another horse and more provisions, but otherwise the plan remains the same. Before dawn tomorrow, we’ll—”

“Two,” Laurent said. “We’ll need two horses.”

Damianos frowned. “Who else is coming with us?”

“I lost my mare today. Unless you want to share your horse, I’d suggest you find me another one.”

Laurent held Damianos’s gaze, daring him to ask how it had happened. His mind was already supplying a dozen excuses and lies— _someone left the stables door open, I left her untied in the woods, I hurt her so badly she fled_ —but just when Damianos was opening his mouth to speak the sound of galloping horses cut him off.

They turned at the same time, watching as Auguste and the Lords rode into the camp. As soon as Auguste’s feet touched the ground, the guards approached him like starved dogs in a kennel. He listened to them, his face a blank tapestry that gave nothing away, not even fear. And yet Laurent thought that he must be scared, for death was now so close it could be smelled in the air if one breathed in deep enough.

Auguste held a hand up for the man, and everyone else, to stop talking. Soon the whole camp was silent, Auguste’s order spreading through it like fire on a field. Even Laurent, who was standing miles away and out of earshot, felt compelled to close his mouth.

It was only when a guard brought forth Auguste’s sword that Laurent thought of Lazar.

Damianos anticipated his movements. “You can’t intervene. I’m sure he won’t hurt him, Laurent.”

“He won’t hurt him,” Laurent said. “He’ll kill him.”

“We need to—”

“Don’t follow me.”

Damianos let out a frustrated sound. Laurent did not stick around long enough to hear him complain, half-walking and half-running towards Auguste, who only had a few strides left until he’d made it to his tent.

The air against his face felt nice, as it had while he rode Damianos’s horse. It was clarifying.

Laurent made it just in time before Auguste crossed the entrance. He grabbed him by the sleeve of his shirt and clung to it, like he’d done so many times as a boy. He tugged, and Auguste turned to face him.

“Don’t,” Laurent said.

Auguste’s eyes were on Laurent’s hand. He did not speak a word.

“Lazar is a fool, but he isn’t—you can’t—”

“I gave him an order,” Auguste said. “And he failed to obey it.”

Laurent’s heart was in his throat, throbbing and painful. “Because of me. Because I hurt him.”

“Ah,” Auguste said. Amused. “Should I punish you instead? With the crop, perhaps.”

It took Laurent another second to realize Auguste was joking. By the time his brain registered the words, Auguste had stepped into the tent, sword in hand, dragging Laurent along with him.

The second he was inside, Laurent closed his eyes. It was pointless to delay the inevitable, but he wanted to stretch this moment, to believe Lazar had gotten away. He’d always been fast, he’d been—

“Your Majesty.”

Laurent opened his eyes to find Jord standing in the middle of the tent, his brown shirt splashed as if with wine. He had something in his hands.

“Where is he, Jord?” Auguste said, tilting his head so he could appreciate the damage better. The broken chair was right where Laurent had left it. The gash on the wall was bigger, cold air filtering into the tent through it. “And don’t bother with lies. If he’s escaped—”

“He has,” Jord said.

Surprise turned Auguste’s mouth slack, but he recovered quickly. Stepping closer to Jord, he said, “Did you help him?”

“Does it matter?” Laurent said, his hands curled around Auguste’s arm. He kept tugging, trying to drag him backward, but Auguste was not budging. “Let it go, Auguste. He’s gone, he’s not a—”

“Why are you here? I don’t recall relieving you of your duties.”

“Your Majesty,” Jord said, and took a step forward so that the distance between his body and Auguste’s was less than ideal. Perhaps he had not seen that Auguste was carrying a sword. “I’ve come to return this.”

Laurent leaned forward to see what _this_ was. He saw something polished and small leave Jord’s fingers and fall into Auguste’s open hand. At first, Laurent thought it was a barrette, but before he could know for sure Auguste closed his fist around it.

And then he realized it was Jord’s badge.

“You’re leaving,” Auguste said. It was not a question. “I thought you were—” He stopped. Under the pads of Laurent’s fingers, Auguste’s muscles grew tense. And then relaxed. “Do as you wish, but Aimeric stays here.”

Jord looked away. His profile was severe, his nose delicately upturned. It was the only part of him that was well-bred. “Aimeric won’t last the night, or so Paschal says.”

“But you were guarding the tent,” Laurent said.

Silence.

Jord did not look at him. “He broke an oil lamp, Your Highness. The shards were sharp enough.”

Laurent sniffed the air. He could not smell smoke or burned skin or charred earth. It was when he raised his eyes to look at Auguste’s face and saw the horror there that he understood, at last, that no one had broken into Aimeric’s tent.

“It wouldn’t be the first time Paschal is mistaken in his assumptions,” Auguste said. “Don’t make rash decisions in grief, Jord.”

“Is that an order, Your Majesty?”

It wasn’t. Laurent had been there the day Auguste made Jord Captain of the King’s Guard, and he remembered the vows perfectly, as though he was hearing them again. It wasn’t a contract that had kept Jord by Auguste’s side for years, but honor and duty. After all, what good was a hound if it did not want its master?

“Get out then,” Auguste said, and his voice was rough. He did not clear his throat. “Leave like the coward you are. Maybe others will follow you.”

Jord’s eyes were on Laurent. _Run while you can_ , Laurent imagined him thinking, and his chest felt impossibly tight as if someone had turned his ribcage into a corset and was now pulling at the laces on the back. He could barely breathe through the pressure.

“Your Highness,” Jord said.

When he walked out, Laurent did not follow, holding onto Auguste tighter as if to keep him from leaving as well. They stood like that for a moment, and eventually, Auguste moved away, dropping his sword on the floor. The furs seemed to swallow the blade, like overgrown ivy, hiding it from view.

Eventually, Laurent found his voice. “You shouldn’t have left him alone.”

“He wanted to be alone, Laurent. He requested it after we came back from the trial. I thought—” Auguste stopped. His shoulders shook, but since his back was turned to him, Laurent could not see if he was laughing or crying or trying to breathe. No sound came through either way. “I thought it would do him good.”

“It was all for nothing.”

“I know.”

“He had family in the south,” Laurent said. He could not stop. “You should have let him go back to them. You should have let his mother—”

“His mother,” Auguste said.

Laurent opened his mouth and closed it again when he realized what he’d been about to say. _I would have liked Mother to be there_. But Mother was dead, had been for over five years, and Laurent had never missed her enough to wish her back to life. Not even now.

“I sent her a letter, asking her to come to the trial. Do you know what she wrote back?”

“Auguste.”

“She said, ‘He’s a northerner now. All my sons live in the south, where they belong’.”

Loyse. Laurent barely remembered her face. She’d liked to spend her days at the palace in a closed room with the curtains drawn. She was prone to headaches. Now Laurent couldn’t help but wonder what it was she had not wanted to see.

There was more to be said. Laurent imagined himself opening his mouth and telling Auguste about what had happened in Uncle’s rooms. He imagined himself explaining how he’d stolen the journal from Nicaise, how he’d helped him escape. He imagined Auguste understanding.

But then Auguste turned around slowly. His beard was slightly ruffled but other than that he looked as calm as Laurent had ever seen him. When he spoke, his words came out clear, steady.

“I want you to do something for me.”

“I’m not leaving,” Laurent said. “I’m going to stay here, and in the morning we’ll—”

“That’s not what I meant,” Auguste said. He lifted his right hand and closed it around Laurent’s, not quite interlocking their fingers. “I want us to be—” He cut himself off, squeezing Laurent’s hand tighter. “Just for today. I want us to stop fighting and act like brothers again.”

Laurent started shaking his head. He didn’t want Auguste’s soft resignation. He didn’t want to hear him speak like this, as if this was their last day together. When Auguste was angry, hating him was easier. But now it was as though all of Auguste’s anger had bled out of him, leaving behind nothing but this hollowed-out version of Laurent’s brother.

“I know that what happened this morning wasn’t—that I almost hurt you. But you’ll have the rest of your life to resent me for it.”

_I don’t resent you for anything_ , Laurent almost said, but couldn’t because he knew it wasn’t true. Still, he said, “You’ll have the rest of your life to make it up to me.”

Auguste’s face contorted and then settled into a calm expression. “Yes,” he said. “I suppose you’re right. And yet I… Can you do this for me?”

“Do _what?_ ”

“Spend the day here with me,” Auguste said. “Let’s—we can play chess. I’ll let you read if that’s what you want to do. Or we can go riding.”

The words Auguste was not saying made it to Laurent’s ears anyways: _like we used to_.

They were still holding hands. Laurent wanted to pull away and lean into the touch at the same time. He knew the first would only hurt Auguste, and so he stayed put, letting his thumb brush over Auguste’s index finger.

Perhaps after a full day spent together, playing this make-believe game, Auguste would consider running away with him and Damianos. Perhaps it wouldn’t take Damianos’s blunt force to make him see that it was not worth it to die here, by Uncle’s hand.

“Chess,” Laurent said. “It’s been a while since I’ve beaten you.”

Auguste smiled. It started out slow, a slight curling of the corners of his mouth, but soon his eyes were in on the joke as well with a boyish glimmer to them Laurent had not seen in a while. It made Auguste look younger, despite his beard. It made him look like himself.

“There are some things I need to take care of first,” Auguste said. “We can eat together after I return if you’d like.”

“All right,” Laurent said.

Auguste gave his hand one last squeeze and let go. He did not explain what things required his attention, and Laurent did not ask him. It was not hard to imagine what they might be, for soon they would have to decide what to do with two corpses, without a Captain, on the eve of the last day of the trial.

Once Auguste had gone, Laurent busied himself with trying to fix the mess he’d made earlier. The broken chair was useless now—one of its legs consisted of a billion splinters—and so Laurent made sure to drag it to a corner of the tent and cover it up with clothes Auguste had worn the previous day.

The hole he’d cut with Lazar’s sword was too wide to be sewn back together, and even if it wasn’t Laurent had never learned to use a needle. He settled for using one of the other chairs to hide most of it from view and keep the air draft from becoming irritating.

The crop was still on the floor. Laurent picked it up and held it in his hands for a moment, rubbing the leather tip with his thumb. His thighs still burned on the spots where he’d sunk his nails into his skin, but the pain was dull, secondary. Laurent had to focus on it to feel it.

He knew sometimes lashes needed stitching, to keep the skin together. That was the sort of pain Laurent wouldn’t have to imagine.

Without allowing himself to dwell on it, Laurent slipped the crop under the bed.

Tidying the tent was easier than staying still and thinking, so when all the traces of his argument with Lazar were gone, Laurent moved on to fixing other things. He made Auguste’s bed and fluffed the pillows like he’d seen the servants do at the palace. He arranged the chairs around the table and made sure the pitcher was full of water. He cleaned the cups until they shined.

It was mechanical, thoughtless. It helped quiet the buzzing in his ears.

Every once in a while he’d glance at the closed tent flaps, half-wishing to see Damianos walking past them, half-dreading it.

When there was nothing else to do, Laurent sat down on Auguste’s pallet and ran his hands across the bedding as if to smooth out all the creases. He was considering lying down when Auguste appeared.

The tray in his hands looked heavy, yet Auguste was carrying it with only one arm. There was a jug, sliced bread, fruit, and what Laurent could only guess were bowls of toasted wheat. A small pot of honey dangled from Auguste’s other hand.

Setting it all down on the table, he said, “Do you still want to—”

“Yes,” Laurent said. “Where’s the board?”

Auguste let his hair fall over his eyes. “In my trunk. The pieces are in a green bag.”

Laurent retrieved both the bag and the board and set them on the table, next to the food tray. While Auguste poured water into the cups, Laurent started putting the pieces on the board, one by one, saving the king for last. They were both silent as they worked, their eyes never meeting.

Auguste held a pear up for Laurent to inspect. “I wasn’t sure if you still liked them. Lord Peire ate all the grapes, I’m afraid.”

“I,” Laurent said. The rest of the phrase got lost in his throat. As he watched, Auguste grabbed a knife from the tray and peeled the fruit in three clean strokes, like he always did. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to,” Auguste said, and set the peeled pear on the table again.

To that, Laurent said nothing. He did not know what to say and, scared of saying the wrong thing, opted for silence.

They sat down facing each other, the board and the tray between them, and opened their mouths to speak at the same time. On instinct, Laurent closed his first.

“I promise not to cheat this time,” Auguste said. It took Laurent a moment to realize he was talking about chess. “Not that cheating has ever worked in my favor.”

_I’ll let you win_. “I always notice when you do.”

Auguste smiled. He set a full cup of water by Laurent’s hand and brought his own to his lips. He didn’t grab any food for himself but was adamant that Laurent ate the pear before they started playing.

Laurent was one bite away from the core when Auguste moved the first piece.

“Who will be your new captain?” Laurent asked, picking up a pawn and placing it one tiny square forward. “Antoine?”

“We’ll see,” Auguste said calmly.

“You don’t know yet?”

“I suppose I don’t.”

Laurent frowned. “The King’s Guard needs a captain. Shouldn’t you name one today? Huet is—”

“A good man,” Auguste said. He had cut Laurent off a million times before, and yet this time it felt different. “I’ll give him the badge later.”

Laurent fell silent again. Focusing on the game was as easy as tidying the tent had been, and after a few minutes had passed Laurent began to realize how much he had missed this. Playing against Auguste was easy; his strategy was flawed and never changed. It was naively predictable. And so when the opportunity to take one of his bishops out, Laurent chose a different route.

“What will you do about Lord Guillaume?”

Auguste looked up from the board for the first time since the game had started. With a thumb on his bearded chin, he said, “The men are building a pyre. It’ll be ready by tonight.”

“No, I meant—the trial.”

“Damianos said I should ask for it to be delayed, but you know what Uncle will think of that. Oh, does my imagination fool me or am I winning this round?”

“It fools you,” Laurent said. His throat felt tight. When he lifted a hand to it, pressing the pads of his fingers just below his jaw, the skin ached. “Auguste, you can’t stay here tomorrow.”

“In this tent? I was not planning to.”

“In the south. In Vere.”

Auguste took out another one of Laurent’s pawns. “And where would I go?”

“To Akielos,” Laurent said. “With me. And Damianos.”

To Laurent’s surprise, Auguste laughed. It wasn’t cruel or taunting, as Auguste’s laughter sometimes came across. It sounded delighted. “Akielos,” he said, and paused. “Tell me, what would I do there?”

“Live.”

Auguste held both hands up and splayed his fingers, examining them closely. He showed Laurent his palms. His fingers were lean, longer than Laurent’s, and his knuckles were always blushing. _Such a shame_ , their lyre instructor would often say, _a pair of hands like that and no talent in them at all_.

Father had been pleased. Music was not for the Crown Prince to learn.

“I could become a farmer,” Auguste said. “Or a fisherman. I have calluses enough from wielding a sword.”

“Stop playing,” Laurent said, so fiercely he startled himself. “Will you come with us?”

Auguste tilted his head to the side. “No. But I still want you to tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“How it could be.”

Laurent threw his cup to the floor. Water splashed against the wall of the tent, against the front of Auguste’s shirt.

“Do you understand what will happen to you tomorrow?”

“I do,” Auguste said. He bent down, picked the cup off the floor and, placing it back on the table, added, “It’s your turn, Laurent.”

“I don’t want to play anymore. I want you to listen to me. I want you to—to stop doing this.”

Auguste leaned back on his chair. It creaked, reminding Laurent of his childhood bed in Arles. He’d jumped on that bed, Auguste standing beside it to make sure Laurent wouldn’t land face-first on the floor. He’d curled up there, drowsy with wine and aching. He missed it now.

He missed everything.

“If we leave before dawn,” Laurent said, as calmly as he could, “no one will notice we’re gone until midday when it’s time to hear the verdict. We’ll make it to Delfeur in just a few days. Once we’ve crossed the border, you can do and be whatever you want. Damianos will help us hide, you know he will, and—”

“Laurent.”

“—you don’t have a reason to stay behind. You don’t have anyone here.”

“If I fail to attend the trial tomorrow, they’ll start looking for us right away. They’ll catch up to us eventually, if not within the first hour. You know this, Laurent. You’ve studied the routes.”

Laurent wanted to grab the cup and throw it again, this time at Auguste’s head. “If we leave before dawn—”

“Uncle will know,” Auguste said. “He always knows. There’s no point in trying to fool him. We’ve both learned it doesn’t work.”

It hurt too deeply. Laurent pressed his fists into his thighs, desperate for something he could not name. Was it a distraction he was after, or a punishment?

“If there’s no point in running away I’ll stay with you,” Laurent said after a pause.

Auguste’s reply was surprisingly gentle. “That’s not what I meant. It’s me he wants dead, not you.”

“Why would he let me live? I could always come back and reclaim—”

“You couldn’t,” Auguste said. “No Veretian would follow you or your cause knowing you ran off with the barbarian king.”

“Don’t call him that.”

Auguste ignored the warning, placating Laurent with a small smile. “He’ll spread rumors about you again, more viciously than ever before. He wants everyone to believe that your mind is gone. When he…” Here he paused, hesitant. “After tomorrow, the lies he’s told about us for years won’t be lies to anyone but you, Laurent. Once word gets out that he’s won, your reputation will be ruined. You’ll never rule Vere, and so you’re not a threat to him.”

“He doesn’t like loose ends,” Laurent argued. He didn’t quite know how to explain that he did not care about Vere. “He’ll come after me, too.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. What matters is that he’ll be busy tomorrow. He might have some roads blocked, but the route you’ve chosen should be safe. And if it isn’t, I trust that Damianos will make it safe.”

Dryly, Laurent said, “So you’ll stay here to distract him. Is that it?”

Auguste’s eyes dropped to the board in front of him. He plucked a piece—the only rook left—and stared at it for a while, twirling it around in his fingers.

“Sometimes one must make sacrifices.”

Laurent’s throat was tight and throbbing again, hot to the touch. It was as though all his anguish had turned corporeal. “You said once that love wasn’t—that it was about indulgence. You _said_ that.”

Slowly, Auguste said, “I did.”

Laurent rubbed at his face with both hands, so hard his skin tingled afterward. “Then indulge me. I won’t ever ask for anything else. You know how to wield a sword and so does Damianos. I’m good with my bow. We stand a chance against them if they hunt us down.”

Auguste set the rook down and pushed his chair back and away from the table. Laurent thought he was going to leave, that he was finally through with their conversation, but Auguste remained seated.

“Come here.”

Laurent didn’t trust himself to argue. He stood silently and circled the table, avoiding the wet spot on the floor where the water hadn’t dried yet. He stopped in front of Auguste, unsure of what was expected of him.

And then Auguste’s hands were wrapped around his, so quickly Laurent had not seen him move at all.

“I meant what I said earlier, Laurent. I don’t want to spend the rest of the day arguing with you.”

“We’re not—”

“We are,” Auguste said, smiling again. His fingers weren’t as warm as Damianos’s, but they were still warmer than Laurent’s. Warmer than Uncle’s. “I’ll think about it and we can discuss this again in the morning.”

“In the morning it will be too late.”

“It won’t be. I’ll wake you up early if that’s what you want.”

“Stop joking.”

Auguste pulled him in by the hands. The position they were in was awkward, for Auguste was still sitting down, and the more Auguste tugged at him the harder it was for Laurent to remain standing. The chair was getting in the way, and so were Auguste’s knees.

Laurent knew they shouldn’t, but he was too exhausted to remind himself, or Auguste, why it was a bad idea to touch each other like this. He was too tired to think of what had happened between them earlier, of the crop and the hurtful words and the cold dismissal.

In the end, feeling like the child he’d tried so hard to smother for years, Laurent let Auguste pull him into his lap. Laurent’s legs were long enough now that his feet were still planted on the floor, unlike how it’d been years ago when their mother sat him on her legs.

The wood of the chair creaked as Laurent settled.

“You promised,” Laurent said against Auguste’s neck, prickly and bearded. “You promised it wouldn’t be like this.”

“I did,” Auguste said, holding him. One of his hands was splayed on Laurent’s back, the other one holding onto Laurent’s fingers. “It seems I’m wrong very often.”

Laurent bit the inside of his cheek to keep from agreeing.

Auguste’s hand moved from Laurent’s back to his hair, fingers threading through the loose braid Laurent did not even remember putting together. His breaths came and went, warm puffs of air against the top of Laurent’s head.

“You’ll see Dion again,” Auguste said after a while. Laurent opened his eyes at the sound of his voice. “I know you miss the beach, too. By the time you make it to Ios, it will be summer… The heat will be awful, but you’ll be fine if you keep to the shade.”

“Auguste.”

“Unless you want to walk around pink-faced.”

“I don’t want to go,” Laurent said into Auguste’s neck. “Not without you.”

Auguste hummed in response. He didn’t seem to mind when Laurent started playing with his fingers, touching all the spots where the hilt of his sword had cut the skin open and left behind a scar. Perhaps the whip was responsible for some of the roughened patches of skin, but Laurent did not want to think about that, and so he didn’t.

Instead, Laurent thought of Lord Guillaume’s hands, cold and pale and dangling off the edge of the bed.

“I’ll think about it,” Auguste said, sounding so calm Laurent knew it was a lie. “Now, do you want me to let you sleep? Or read. I haven’t brought any books with me, but I—”

“No,” Laurent said. He pulled back enough to look at Auguste’s face. “I want to win this round first.”

“I don’t know how you’ll manage to beat me. I’m obviously winning.”

Laurent looked at the board and found that it was true. He counted the pieces on the table, the ones Auguste had won from him, and realized there were more in that little pile than he remembered losing. Instead of pointing it out, Laurent moved his queen.

“It’s your turn now.”

Auguste held him closer. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“About what?”

“All right,” Auguste said. “But don’t sulk when I win.”

“You won’t win,” Laurent said. “And I don’t sulk.”

Auguste shifted in the chair, forcing Laurent to shift with him. They were now facing the table, and Auguste’s arms were around Laurent, which made reaching the board easier.

“You’re a terrible loser.”

“I never lose.”

“Which is why you’re terrible at it.”

Laurent pulled a face at that and was rewarded with Auguste’s laughter. “In Ios,” he said, struggling to keep his voice steady, “I’ll teach you to play knucklebones. Akielon rules are different.”

Auguste put his chin on Laurent’s shoulder, eyes on the board. “What else?”

“We’ll go to the beach at night. Damianos said some animals only come out when it’s dark, and I didn’t—last time I was there, I didn’t get to see them.”

“What kind of animals?”

Laurent settled against Auguste’s chest, watching his hand dither over the pieces as he tried to decide what his next move would be. In lazy Akielon, he said, “Crabs.”

“Can you describe them?” Auguste said, his breath a warm ghost on Laurent’s right temple. He moved his bishop. “My Akielon is rusty.”

“Your Akielon is non-existent.”

Auguste was smiling. “I’m not worried about it. You’ll be my interpreter.”

“Damianos called them sea spiders,” Laurent said. His throat was closing again, tightening. He held onto Auguste’s hand to distract himself. “I don’t know what they look like.”

“Like spiders, I suppose.”

“You’re not funny.”

“I think I am,” Auguste said. “And I think I just beat you at chess.”

Laurent didn’t need to look at the board to know it was true. Auguste held the king in his hand, dangling in front of Laurent’s face, and when Laurent tried to snatch it away Auguste shifted so he couldn’t reach it.

“You said you wouldn’t sulk.”

Laurent did not attempt to control his expression. He wasn’t upset over Auguste’s fraudulent victory. He was starting to understand how important this was to his brother. It was normalcy Auguste was after, familiarity. And Laurent, if nothing else, could give him this.

They played again and again, until Auguste was too tired to cheat and Laurent was too obvious in his orchestrated mistakes. Not once did Auguste ask him to go back to his seat, and not once did Laurent offer to leave.

It had been too long since Laurent had had him like this, so available, so present, and the thought of this day being the last they would ever spend together hurt so much Laurent could not bear to think about it. It was a physical pain, and it stung more than any lash Auguste could have delivered or any scratches Laurent had ever given himself.

As the hours passed, Laurent moved and said less, staring at Auguste instead of paying attention to the game, trying to commit his expression to memory so as to never forget his crooked smile or the way his hair curled up at his nape. Even his beard felt important, and Laurent searched it for grey and silver hairs, anything that would help him picture Auguste older than he was today.

Auguste was one move away from winning, again, when a voice from outside the tent interrupted him. It startled Laurent, for everything had been so still and quiet for hours he’d almost forgotten they weren’t the only people at this camp.

“Your Majesty,” the man standing on the other side of the entrance said, “the pyre is ready.”

Laurent heard shuffling footsteps as the man retreated, and then everything was quiet again, unnaturally so.

“I asked them not to disturb us,” Auguste explained as he took out Laurent’s king for the sixth time that day. “Not even Damianos.” There was a pause, during which he started to put all the pieces back into the green bag. “Especially Damianos, I suppose.”

Laurent’s throat closed again, but now for different reasons. “Especially?”

Auguste paused, and said, “You spend most of your days with him. He’d be here if I hadn’t told him to stay away.”

Instead of answering, Laurent pressed his cheek to Auguste’s shoulder, the prickly fabric of his jacket scratching at his skin. He wanted Auguste to stop talking but didn’t know how to say it without explaining himself, and so there was no other option but to keep quiet.

Once all the pieces and the board had been put away, Auguste placed his hand on the back of Laurent’s head, and said, “Should I have asked him to join us?”

“He doesn’t know how to play chess.”

“Is that the only reason?” Auguste asked, moving his fingers slowly as he’d done before.

Laurent closed his eyes and made a sound that he hoped would come off as an affirmation.

“I’m glad you get along,” Auguste went on. “I was afraid you wouldn’t, at first. That you’d find him too different from what you remembered.”

Guilt made Laurent’s stomach ache as it twisted inside his body. “He _is_ different.”

“But he’s still a man of his word,” Auguste said with a smile in his voice. His fingertips brushed against Laurent’s throat. “He’s been a good friend to us both. Remember that, Laurent.”

“I know that.”

“I know you do, but it’s easy to forget things like that when one is upset.”

Laurent didn’t reply. It felt like too much effort.

Auguste shifted in the chair, which creaked loudly under them, and tried to push the hair out of Laurent’s face. “Don’t make things harder for him.”

“What—”

“Tomorrow,” Auguste said. “Don’t try to stay here after I—after everything is said and done.”

At that, Laurent opened his eyes. Auguste’s face was still calm, no signs of rage that Laurent could see. It was a struggle to breathe, a struggle to get the words out. “I don’t want…” He paused, wishing he had kept his eyes closed for this. Slowly, he added, “Uncle is different, too. He isn’t what I… thought.”

Auguste was quiet for a long moment. His right cheek was caved in, which meant he was biting it. “He’s not different, Laurent. He’s the way he’s always been.”

“He—”

“Please,” Auguste said. “Not today.”

Laurent looked at the table. Now that the game was over, he once again did not know what to say to Auguste, what to offer him. It did not surprise Laurent when Auguste moved, prompting him to stand up. After all, Auguste’s attention had always felt absolute, but limited.

“I have to be there when they light the pyre,” Auguste said, on his feet. His left hand, ringless, was splayed on the edge of the table as if to support him. “Perhaps you should go to Damianos now and ready things for tomorrow.”

They stared at each other, not moving. Laurent studied him in silence, as he’d been doing the whole day—the way he stood, his fingers drumming on the wood, a blonde lock out of place—and wondered if he himself would look like this, on the cusp of thirty springs.

There was too much Laurent wanted to say to him, as usual, but there just wasn’t enough time. There had never been enough time.

“Thank you,” Auguste said.

With as much wry as Laurent could muster, he replied, “For letting you win at chess?”

A smile, crow’s feet by Auguste’s eyes, an eyebrow arched in mock disbelief. “Yes,” he said. “For letting me win at chess.”

Slowly, they walked side by side to the entrance of the tent, a flimsy wall of cloth separating this moment from the next. Before Auguste could slip away, past the tent flaps and into the real world again, Laurent grabbed him by the elbow. And then by the waist. And then by the back of his jacket, holding on so tightly his fingernails were surely digging into Auguste’s skin.

It took Auguste only a second to put his arms around Laurent’s shoulders.

“I missed you,” Laurent said against the front laces of Auguste’s shirt. “I missed our conversations.”

“I missed you too,” Auguste said, out of breath. “Even when I was awful to you, I still—”

Laurent held on tighter. “I know.”

It wasn’t like the embrace they’d shared in Ios. Back then, Laurent had known there’d be years to spend together. Desperation had not been in the room with them.

“Laurent,” Auguste said. “I—”

A voice came again from outside, shattering it all: “Your Majesty.”

Laurent let him go. _Fifteen seconds_ , he thought bitterly but did not dare complain. It was more than Timon had gotten with his father. Or Aeneas and Dion with Timon.

“You don’t have to watch this,” Auguste said, already stepping away, outside. “Go to Damianos.”

Laurent let a moment pass and then followed him, making sure to keep to the shade, to the edges.

The pyre was made of a thousand tree branches and twigs, brown and white and black. On top of it was Lord Guillaume’s body, draped in what Laurent guessed were his finest clothes, and around it, all of the men he had brought with him were gathered in a tight circle, waiting.

Laurent found a tree to lean against and watched from there as the spectacle of death unfolded, as pompous as Lord Guillaume himself had been.

Auguste was handed a torch. It glittered against the darkening sky as he raised it one time above his head before feeding it into the mess of wood the pyre was. The roaring flames appeared too soon, and that’s how Laurent knew they had bathed Lord Guillaume in oil, as he’d read in his books.

It seemed to go on forever, burning and burning. Auguste was a dark silhouette against the fire, and Laurent stared at him until his vision blurred, eyes aching from the smoke.

Through it all, Laurent did not breathe through his nose. He knew what burning flesh smelled like.

As time began to pass, the flames died down, and the circle around the pyre became less and less tight. Men began to leave, disperse. The sky was darker, bordering on black.

Laurent barely had enough time to wonder where Lord Peire and Lord Jasque were when they appeared as if summoned, with a long line of young men behind them. A single queue of pretty boys, dressed in lace and velvet, the same fabrics the drawers in Uncle’s rooms had been full of. All of them were barefoot, yet none complained as they walked over twigs and small pebbles to the place where Auguste awaited.

Auguste was not bashful as he stared at them. They were for him to watch, after all. _A present to celebrate your imminent victory_ , Lord Peire had told Auguste a little over a week ago. But there would be no victory, and thus no celebration.

The smoke rising from the pyre offered a distraction, yet Laurent found that sight more disturbing. He forced himself to stare at the pets despite his disgust.

They didn’t have the smooth skin the pets in Arles had, nor the boyish features men preferred in the south. Everywhere Laurent looked he could see strange details: a freckled face, white eyelashes, pierced skin, split lobes.

Auguste walked from one end of the line to the other. He did it twice more before stopping in front of a dark-haired pet, the one who was dressed in turquoise. There was nothing especially pretty about him that Laurent could see, but clearly, Auguste thought differently.

“Your Majesty,” the pet said. He had an accent, of sorts. It was only when he licked his lower lip that Laurent realized why: his tongue was split like a snake’s.

Auguste nodded once, and the pet stepped forward, awaiting instruction. But then Auguste moved to the right, his eyes on the pet whose clothes hid the most away, and said something too low for Laurent to hear.

A flick of Auguste’s wrist later, the two pets were leaving the line, walking to the only blue tent in the camp.

“Wine,” Auguste said to no one in particular, knowing he’d be obeyed anyways. “I want no interruptions tonight.” He turned, facing Huet and Guymar, the only two men of the King’s Guard that remained, and without warning, he threw something at the first of them. Huet caught it. “Congratulations, Captain.”

Huet’s face was a mixture of terror and excitement. He knew too well what had happened to Auguste’s last two captains. “Your Majesty,” he said, as breathy as the pet had sounded minutes before.

But Auguste did not bother with a reply, too busy taking the golden pitcher of wine from one of Lord Jasque’s men. Without another word, he started towards his tent, where Laurent imagined the two pets were waiting for him, most likely undressed.

Lord Peire and Lord Jasque chose their pets for the night. The unlucky ones returned to their tent in a neat line and although it was clear they were trying to be quiet, Laurent still heard bits of their conversations. _Unfair_ , one said.

Laurent couldn’t help but agree.

*

As Laurent walked into Damianos’s tent, Pallas stormed out of it. Their shoulder barely brushed, and yet Pallas stopped in his tracks with his head ducked, eyes on the ground.

“Your Highness,” he said, and his voice was strangely high. “Excuse me.”

Laurent could have reassured him. He could have asked him about Lazar. If he knew where he was. If he’d helped him run. Laurent did not ask him any of those things; he did not dare.

There was only one lit oil lamp. Laurent wished for candles, a hundred of them. For more shadows on the walls.

Damianos was sitting on the edge of the pallet when Laurent came in, his head in his hands. He was wearing the undershirt he reserved for bed, shorter than a chiton but long enough so that nudity was not an issue. He looked up as Laurent drew closer, and their eyes met.

“Auguste asked me to stay away,” Damianos said, perhaps sensing the shift in Laurent’s mood. “And the fire—I didn’t want to interfere.”

“I haven’t come here to talk about my brother,” Laurent said. “Or a dead man.”

Laurent kept advancing. He only came to a stop when he was standing between Damianos’s spread legs, his knees brushing against Laurent’s legs.

It wasn’t a quiet night, as others between them had been. If Laurent concentrated enough, he could still hear what remained of the roaring fire. The men had not gone to bed yet, and so their conversations were a buzzing sound in Laurent’s ears, louder than any crickets or owls.

Despite not being able to hear them, Laurent knew there were moans being sighed into beddings as well.

“I’ve found you another horse,” Damianos said. His eyes had never left Laurent’s face. “It’s not a mare, but—”

“You were supposed to find two.”

“Laurent.”

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” Laurent said. Slowly. Savouring each word, his tongue aching in his mouth. “And Auguste will stay here to die.”

Damianos placed his hands on Laurent’s hips, tender from earlier. The grip hurt, and Laurent liked the way it stung, softly. “I thought you didn’t want to talk about your brother.”

“My uncle will cut his head off tomorrow. At midday. I want you to say it.”

“I—”

“Say it.”

“Why are you torturing yourself like this?” Damianos said. Laurent supposed he sounded angry, but could not understand why. “Both of us. He’s my friend. Do you think it doesn’t—”

“I don’t care. You promised me something and failed. I want you to say it.”

Damianos’s anger dissolved from his face and left behind a sad expression that made Laurent uncomfortable. For a while, neither of them spoke. Laurent was certain Damianos would not speak again, least of all to say the words, but then Damianos opened his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he said, thumbs rubbing Laurent’s hipbones through his pants. “I’m sorry I couldn’t—”

But Laurent did not let him finish. He leaned down and pressed his mouth to Damianos’s so hard it was bound to bruise. Putting his hand on Damianos’s chest, Laurent pushed him down onto the mattress.

Damianos was on his back, staring up at him. “I don’t want—”

“I think you do.”

Laurent kneeled on the edge of the bed. He knew it’d be a hassle to take his pants off like this, but for the time being, he focused on his shirt. Undoing the laces at his throat first, then moving on to the ones at his forearms. There was a small stain near his right cuff, brown. It was, he realized slowly, dried blood.

Damianos grabbed him by the wrists. “What are you doing?”

“I’m undressing,” Laurent said. He did not attempt to free himself from Damianos’s crushing grip, for he knew he did not possess the strength to manage it. “It’s what one typically does before—”

“Is it?” Damianos said, a strange shadow on his face. To Laurent, his words sounded like a dare. _How would you know?_

“I told you. I’m not a virgin.”

Damianos pushed him away, forcing him off his knees. “We’re not doing this tonight, Laurent.”

Laurent ignored him. He tugged at the laces on his arms until they gave, until he heard the fabric ripping. The night was warmer than he’d realized, for when he shrugged his shirt off and let it fall to the floor he felt nothing at all. He did not even shiver. His fingers fumbled with the silver buckle of his belt as Damianos rose from the bed.

“If you don’t stop,” Damianos said, “I’ll ask Pallas to remove you.”

“Do you think you’re the only man in this camp? That I wouldn’t be able to find someone else willing to—”

“Are _you_ willing?”

Laurent went very still. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Damianos did not answer. He bent down and picked Laurent’s shirt off the floor, shoving it at him. Then, in a swift motion, he turned and ripped the blanket off the bed, holding it in his fist before letting it fall to the ground.

Laurent started, “You don’t get to decide it all.”

“Tell me this isn’t about him, then. Tell me you aren’t here to punish us both.”

But Laurent could not, for it was the truth. In the dim light of the oil lamp, flickering and unsteady, Auguste was between them, sharp as a knife. And Laurent hungered for the bite of it, to feel the ragged edge against his skin. For the spill of blood that would follow.

Was that how Aimeric had felt, as he’d held the glass against his wrist and pressed down? Or had he gone for the throat, instead?

“Here,” Damianos said, taking Laurent’s shirt away and replacing it with one of his own. “Yours is ruined. You ripped the hem.” He paused, watching. And then, “Put it on.”

Laurent looked down at his hands and the new shirt in them. He could feel the cold now, for the first time since he’d walked in, crawling up his arms. It was too much—the refusal, his own disgust, the taste of bile in the back of his mouth—and there was no reason to endure it.

The pull to let go was there, and Laurent did not fight it.

Even though he had not tasted any wine, his body became a pliant thing. He stopped being aware of his own limbs, of the space he was occupying, and soon it was as though he wasn’t there. Or anywhere at all.

Real things came to him in flashes, in between blinks: the soft mattress under him, Damianos’s hand on his forehead, the shirt being taken from him again.

Laurent tilted his head, cheek against the pillow. Damianos was lying next to him, his mouth still red from Laurent’s teeth. It was moving.

“—back?”

Laurent blinked at him in response.

Damianos’s frown loosened. “You said this didn’t happen anymore.”

It was darker than Laurent remembered the tent being. At some point, Damianos must have blown out the light.

“Laurent?”

Laurent reached out to touch him. His hand did not look like his own as he pressed his fingertips to Damianos’s chin.

“It’s been a long day,” Damianos said, “and it’ll be a long day tomorrow. You need to sleep.”

Laurent shifted closer, until there was not an inch of space between them. Just as it’d happened with Auguste, it took Damianos a moment to react. He didn’t push Laurent away, placing his hand on the back of Laurent’s neck.

“I dream of Kastor sometimes,” Laurent said. If it was cruel to say it, he did not care. “Of that day.”

Damianos’s hands did not still in his hair, his breathing did not stop. “I dream of him too,” he said softly.

Laurent remembered the scorching sun, the cool breeze. It had been the most beautiful day of that winter. Like a child, he found himself saying, “It isn’t fair.”

“It isn’t.”

“I lied. You asked me if I thought it would hurt, and I said—I said it wouldn’t. But it was a lie.”

“I know,” Damianos said, “and I knew it back then too.”

Laurent closed his eyes. It wasn’t enough, and so he pressed his face harder into Damianos’s neck. Light exploded behind his eyelids for only one second, and then the sting was back. He swallowed.

“I don’t want it to hurt,” Laurent said.

Damianos held him closer. Their ribs bumped as they breathed. “It’ll be quick. It’ll be so quick he won’t—like falling asleep.”

The carefully constructed wall Laurent had put up all those years ago between himself and the world was cracking, a fissured dam he had no strength to fix. Damianos's poorly told lie was the last blow before Laurent’s self-restraint left him. The first tears felt scaldingly hot, as though it was the act of crying itself that hurt.

Damianos must have felt the wetness against his neck, for he stilled under Laurent.

At last, Damianos said, “What was he like before the war?”

_Better_ , Laurent almost said, but stopped himself on time. It wasn’t Auguste who’d been better back then, but Laurent. Less needy, more capable. A real boy.

It was a hassle not to sniff, but he managed. “Funny,” Laurent said. His voice sounded the way he felt. “He liked—hunting.”

Damianos ran a hand across Laurent’s back as if to smooth out his spine. “Did he?”

“Yes. Boars, stags. He’d poke me—” Laurent drew in a breath. “With the antlers.”

It was perfectly dark and quiet in the tent for a stretched-out moment.

“Go on,” Damianos said.

Laurent couldn’t, and it angered him. That last night in Ios before Kastor’s death, Damianos had talked himself hoarse. He’d told Laurent of the fishing trips, the summer palace, the times Kastor had grudgingly let Damianos ride his horse.

Now Laurent wanted to do the same for Auguste, wanted to open his mouth and let it all flood out of him, every sun-filled memory. He’d tell Damianos of the riding lessons, the sweets Auguste would steal from the kitchens, the way he’d hold Laurent’s hand under the table during feasts. Except when Laurent’s lips parted, no sound came out at all.

Damianos was patient, his fleeting touches unrushed. He didn’t say anything when Laurent pulled away, lifting his chin to face him.

“I need you to—”

“No,” Damianos said. “You don’t. Go to sleep, I promise things will look different in the morning.”

Laurent ignored him and leaned in, pressing his closed mouth to Damianos’s jaw, slowly working his way up to his lips.

“Laurent,” Damianos said.

Laurent kissed him, softer than the first time. He thought this might work better, and so he did it again, sweetly. But Damianos’s mouth remained closed, his lips a tight line Laurent would not seem to breach. Frustrated, he pulled away. He felt like crying again, only this time it would not be about Auguste.

Exhaustion won, in the end. His head felt too heavy, and so Laurent lowered it again, cheek against Damianos’s naked shoulder. His neck felt bird-like, as though it would snap if Laurent didn’t lie down.

“Stay.”

Damianos did not reply.

“Please,” Laurent said, and stopped before the other word that had always followed a plea could come out of his mouth. Hot shame spilled from his eyes again.

“All right,” Damianos said. Panicked, maybe, at the feel of new tears. “We can both have the bed tonight.”

Laurent searched for Damianos’s hand. In the dark, their fingers intertwined as they had a hundred times before, and soon Laurent’s eyes were closing despite his best efforts. His last conscious thought was of the weather. He wondered if it would rain tomorrow, knowing far too well how vibrant blood looked when the sun was completely out, illuminating it all. Dreading it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: minor character death, funerary rites, mentions of vomit, mentions/discussions of abuse, mentions of mental illnesses in a derogatory way, acute episodes of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder with dissociative tendencies, brief discussion of suicide, self-harm (both in the form of physical punishment and sex), unhealthy coping mechanisms (disregarding abuse/down talking violence), dubious consent when kissing. If you believe I should add any warnings, please let me know in the comments.
> 
> Hello dearies! It has been three weeks but hopefully, the wait has been worth it. I completely made up Akielon and Veretian traditions surrounding death, as you have probably guessed by now. Since there is no mention of religion in the books, I decided to go with a "pagan" approach, kind of. I totally stole the pyre thing from the Illiad, sorry. How are you liking detached!Laurent?
> 
> \- [Heather drew a scene that didn't happen last chapter but it sort of did now](https://heatherdrawings.tumblr.com/post/630562016276463616/okay-i-know-this-didnt-actually-happen-in-the). Kind of. They hugged, okay? It lasted fifteen seconds but we got a hug and they played chess, so I count that as a win. 
> 
> \- The next chapter won't be up for some time (I'm praying it won't take more than two weeks but I only have half of it written and it's... It's so long. It's the longest chapter so far) and so I thought I'd rec two fics this time! This is a Berencel fic I've been reading called [The Firebird Suite by treeprince](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26183338). It's very funny in a wry way that I'm sure you will all enjoy. And the second fic is a Modern AU by VeretianStarburst, titled [Beg my broken heart to beat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26350354) , which I have been screaming about internally for some weeks now. I hope you give those a try!
> 
> \- Pls tell me you've seen my parallels... pls. 
> 
> I hope you're all doing well! Let's try and survive what's left of this year <3


	26. Twenty-four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am once again asking you to please read the warnings at the end of this chapter.

**Twenty-four**

Damianos woke to the impression of Laurent beside him, a warm and solid presence in his small and temporary Veretian bed. He had not meant to fall asleep, but listening to Laurent’s evened out breathing had at some point during the night lulled him into unconsciousness. Although he was awake, Damianos did not open his eyes for a long time, savoring the way Laurent’s relaxed body felt against his own, enjoying the way the outside world and its billion problems had not yet reached either of them.

Laurent had turned away from him in his sleep, his face buried in one of the pillows, his naked back plastered to Damianos’s clothed chest. Laurent smelled of the day before—the soft undertones of smoke, the faint traces of hay, the salty fragrance of tears—and Damianos’s mind, still slow with sleep, supplied him with the daydream of events that would not and could not happen that morning.

He’d lead Laurent to the stream by the hand, the two of them walking through the forest without caring if any guards saw them. The water would be warm and pleasant, enough so that Laurent would comment on it. There’d be no shame between them, no lies, and they’d strip off their clothes the way Damianos had done a hundred times in the presence of both lovers and friends. Laurent’s skin would bear no marks of his tight clothes, a smooth surface Damianos could touch without pause or hesitation, and together they would soak until they grew tired. Until one kiss led to another.

Coaxing himself to open his eyes was strange, for Damianos had never lounged long in bed after awakening, had never found pleasure in resting. When he finally opened his eyes, he was rewarded by the sight of Laurent’s hair spilled all over the white pillows, a hundred threads of gold.

It wasn’t dark enough to be nighttime, and the bluish shadows on the walls of the tent told Damianos the sun was preparing to rise, uncaring of what it would bring with it. He was about to try and slip his arm from under Laurent when Laurent’s breathing changed.

“It’s early,” Damianos said against Laurent’s nape. He was yet to lift his head, to stretch his limbs, and he did not know exactly who he was reassuring with those words. “We have some time left before dawn.”

Laurent turned in his arms. He looked different, his features somehow more defined. Determined. Whatever sadness had been in him the night before seemed now to have solidified and hardened like a thin armor that kept him together.

Damianos waited for Laurent to speak, and when he didn’t Damianos also stayed silent, trying to push the warm but bittersweet feeling of having Laurent in his bed. There’d be no stream today, no quiet walk through the forest holding hands. The sooner Damianos let go of that dream, the better.

Laurent’s eyes were wide open, sharp and assessing. “Did you sleep here?”

“Yes,” Damianos said.

“Did we—” Laurent cut himself off. It was as though he had not thought the question through before opening his mouth. The pause stretched, and then Laurent said, “Why?”

“Because you asked me to.”

“I also asked you to fuck me, and yet you refused. Why is it that you obey some orders and not others?”

The jab did not hurt. Damianos had been angry the morning of Kastor’s execution, sending the slaves away from his rooms with sharp words that had shamed him later. He’d been furious at his father in a way that was new to him, a resentment that even now he remembered as borrowed, tainted by Kastor’s fingerprints.

And so Damianos ignored Laurent. They’d have plenty of time to fight when they left the camp and started their journey south. He focused instead on trying to move away from Laurent, discreetly, so their bodies would not be touching anymore.

A thin line of linen sheets separated them. Laurent had taken off his shirt last night and not put it back on, but only now did Damianos stop to really look at him, at the soft and firm lines of his body.

Laurent’s skin was smooth, paler than Auguste’s, interrupted only by the soft trail of blonde hair on his lower stomach that disappeared into the waistband of his pants. There was a mole on his right shoulder, the color of acorns.

When Damianos raised his eyes to Laurent’s face, he found himself being stared at.

Caught, Laurent flushed. His eyes flickered to the ceiling of the tent for a second, and when he looked at Damianos again he seemed colder, as if angry at himself for his indiscretion.

Damianos said, “I’ve brought all your things here. We can’t take everything with us, but I wanted you to choose what to leave behind and what to take to Ios.”

“My book,” Laurent said easily. His expression darkened as he said it, and Damianos swallowed the words he’d been about to speak. Taking a book seemed childish. “My bow and quiver. Everything else stays.”

“They’re under the bed,” Damianos said. “Except for your book.”

“Did you leave that in my tent?”

“No, it’s in my trunk. Your hairbrush is in there, too.”

Laurent gave him a long look. “I doubt I’ll have time to brush my hair while we escape.”

As if drawn to it, Damianos lifted his hand and touched a lock of Laurent’s hair that was dangerously close to his mouth. He pushed it back behind Laurent’s ear, feeling the pads of his fingers throb as they grazed Laurent’s cheek.

“There’ll be time once we’ve reached Delfeur,” Damianos said. “Our horses are fast. I—”

“Why didn’t you get Auguste one?”

“Auguste has his own horse.”

“Which everyone knows is his,” Laurent said. The drawl of his words was making Damianos feel stupid. “You were supposed to get one for him as well, and yet you didn’t.”

Damianos closed his eyes for a moment. “Auguste came to speak to me yesterday. He made it clear he doesn’t plan on joining us and why.”

“If my uncle wants to kill me, he will. I don’t see why we can’t at least try to take Auguste with us.”

“You do.”

Laurent was frowning when Damianos opened his eyes again. “What?”

“You do see why,” Damianos said as gently as he could. “I know he explained it to you. And even if I agreed with you, we can’t force him to come. I tried to convince him yesterday but you know—”

“How he is,” Laurent finished for him. In a tight voice, he added, “You could take him if you wanted to. A goblet to the head and he’d be pliant enough.”

Damianos had considered it. The day before, when Laurent had stumbled out of Lord Guillaume’s tent ghastly pale and talking of running away, Damianos had thought of talking Auguste into following. And if talking was not enough, he thought he’d try his luck in combat.

But then Auguste had come into his tent, calm, collected. He’d given Damianos his crown, wrapped in the most inconspicuous sheet, and told him to hide it from Laurent until they were out of danger. He’d told him why he would stay behind.

 _My mother’s medallion is in there_ , Auguste had said as he handed over the small bundle, _and my father’s ring._

Damianos had been envious for a second; he had nothing like that of Kastor’s, of his own mother. The feeling had not lasted long, for Damianos remembered he _did_ have something of his brother back home, waiting for him, calling him uncle.

“I’m sorry,” Damianos said. He’d said it before, but the need to do it again was too strong for him to hold back. “He doesn’t deserve this.”

“What men deserve—”

“—is rarely what they get.”

Laurent pulled at a loose thread on the pillowcase. If he kept it up much longer, the seam would come apart.

“Last night,” Damianos said, trying to sound gentle. He didn’t know how to approach the subject, didn’t know anything but what Laurent had told him in Ios. “You had a dream.”

“A dream,” Laurent echoed.

“That’s what you used to call it.”

“Yes.” Laurent looked serious and amused at the same time. His fingers had stilled on the pillow. “It hasn’t happened in a while.”

“It happened the other morning too,” Damianos said. “I don’t—I only need to know if you can ride on your own.”

Laurent’s amusement only seemed to grow. “Ah. That does sound terrible for you, doesn’t it? Sharing a saddle with me.”

“Laurent.”

“I meant it. They’re not common, haven’t been since I was fifteen.”

Damianos closed his eyes for a second and tried to imagine what Laurent had looked like at fifteen. He remembered, vaguely, the few lines in Auguste’s letters dedicated to describing his brother’s life. _Spindly, growing, suitors_.

Damianos hadn’t been interested back then. He wished now that he’d asked, that he’d tried to pry more answers out of Auguste when there was still time to do so.

“Once we’ve reached Ios,” Damianos said, “you should ask Aesop for—”

“No.”

“You don’t know what I was about to suggest.”

Laurent tugged at the loose thread, hard. “A physician. Maybe salts.” Almost with boredom, he added, “I need neither.”

Damianos didn’t want to point out the obvious, and so he didn’t. He stayed quiet, watching Laurent’s face.

“I can ride,” Laurent said into the silence. A bird chirped outside, the first real sound of the new day. “And I don’t need you to treat me like a child. I’m eighteen years old.”

“I know,” Damianos said. “I know you’re not a child.”

“Do you?”

The sharp edges of that question dug into Damianos like a knife. He thought of the few stolen kisses they’d shared, of what courtship meant to him. Feeling nauseous, he said, “Why does that worry you?”

It was as though a thick, impenetrable wall had come up between them. Laurent’s expression closed like a slamming door, locking tightly. Even his eyes grew cold, the way Damianos remembered them being when they’d first met. It was a dare. _Say it_ , he demanded with his silence.

Damianos reached out for him then, tucking more hair behind his ear, thinking himself foolish for asking such things. The nauseous feeling in him only grew more intense, for he knew the answer Laurent wasn’t saying. He knew, and yet he didn’t. He pushed it away once more, to the bottom of his mind, knowing that, eventually, it would come afloat.

His thumb traced the firm lines of Laurent’s ear and stayed away from his lobe. The pink dot was there, so visible it felt like an offense of sorts. Damianos pushed it all away once more, not wanting to know.

The silence grew, heavy and stifling. Damianos felt it like a physical weight on both of them and did not struggle against it. Laurent didn’t either, unnaturally still as if he was waiting for something to splinter.

Laurent kissed him first. It wasn’t like it’d been the night before, desperate and angry, bordering on self-righteousness. It was tentative, like the rehearsal of a real kiss.

Damianos did not know how to push him away, how to deprive him of this. When his father had died, Damianos had spent the following night with both Erasmus and Rhea in his bed, his room a silent tomb of warm touches.

He knew what it was like to lose family. He knew what it was like to use a body.

Damianos did not open his mouth to let Laurent in. He touched Laurent’s cheek with his thumb instead, tracing the bone underneath the skin, and told himself they had kissed before. Courtship would happen, for Damianos wanted it above most things, and a simple kiss wouldn’t tarnish it.

Laurent moved away, only to lean in again a second later. He kissed the corner of Damianos’s mouth as he pulled at the short curls on Damianos’s nape. After a particularly hard tug, Damianos smiled.

Damianos was about to pull away when he heard it—the tent flaps opening abruptly, the cold morning air rushing inside, the metallic unsheathing of a sword. Suddenly it was too late to do anything.

Even before opening his eyes and turning his head, Damianos knew. Laurent did as well, suddenly rigid as a corpse against him.

Auguste stood at the entrance, looking at them as if seeing them for the very first time. His left hand was still folded around one of the tent flaps, clutching it, knuckles the color of crushed bones. In his right hand, he held his sword. He stepped inside, almost stumbling.

Laurent said a single word, his brother’s name, and rose from the bed, shirtless and with his hair still bearing the mark of Damianos’s fingers in it.

Auguste’s eyes were on Damianos. It was as though there was no one else but the two of them in the tent, as though Laurent had faded away when Damianos wasn’t paying attention. Auguste’s gaze was familiarly cold, not because he had looked at Damianos like this before, but rather because Damianos still remembered Auguste’s face the first time he’d come face to face with his uncle.

Laurent said, again, “Auguste.”

Auguste grabbed Damianos’s sword. Damianos had left it close to the entrance, leaning against the only wooden chair in his tent so he would not forget it on his way out, as he had with Laurent’s dagger a hundred times.

It hit the floor with a loud thud when Auguste threw it at him, the soil under Damianos’s feet shaking under its weight. The blade was the sharpest it had ever been, for Damianos had spent the day before honing it.

“Come and face me,” Auguste said, venomous, “like the man you’ve been pretending to be.”

Laurent stood between them, at least two heads shorter than his brother. Damianos thought he knew what Laurent was going to say— _don’t_ and _nothing happened_ and _let me explain_ —and was surprised into stillness by Laurent’s sharp words.

“What honor are you trying to defend? I’m not a maiden you’ve caught with the stable boy.”

Auguste’s eyes left Damianos for the first time. They did not get any softer when they landed on Laurent’s face.

“I came here looking for you,” Auguste said. “You weren’t in your tent, and I thought you’d gone to our uncle.” Then, each word like a lash: “It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve tried to crawl your way back to him, after all.”

Despite the blow, Laurent’s posture did not falter, but he did go quiet.

“Auguste,” Damianos said. The name burned his mouth, blistering his tongue. He thought he’d known what guilt was, but he’d been terribly mistaken.

“How long—” Auguste’s face contorted, anger and disgust twisting his features until his beauty was completely gone. Pale and horrified, he said, “When I sent him to Ios with you—”

“He was _thirteen_.”

Damianos saw the exact moment Laurent stilled. Like a puppet with too tight strings, he pushed back his shoulders, spine straightening to the point of pain.

“Pick up your sword, Damianos.”

Damianos did not move. It went against every lesson he’d ever learned, against everything his father had stood for, yet Damianos did not reach for his blade.

“I was going to ask you for permission to court Laurent before we left. I was—”

Auguste tried to advance, but Laurent did not let him. “I’m sure you were. You want to court my brother, who can’t give you a single heir for your filthy throne. Have you fucked him already, or were you waiting for my blessing?”

Laurent said, “So what if he has?”

“I haven’t,” Damianos said. He thought of throttling Laurent to death. “I would never—”

“No one’s ever needed your blessing before, brother.” 

Like a physical reaction to the words, Auguste shoved Laurent back and away from him. There was something in the gesture that reminded Damianos of a burn, the need to quickly salvage one’s skin by pulling away from the flames. It reminded him of something else, too.

 _I’m not a virgin_ , Laurent had said, yet he’d kissed Damianos as though it was the first time he’d taken a lover. It wasn’t inexperience that had permeated the act, Damianos realized at last. It had been resistance, the act of willing one’s hand to scorch instead of removing it from a fire.

Remorse made Laurent’s voice high. “Auguste, I didn’t mean—”

Auguste ignored him, eyes on Damianos. “You were my friend.”

“And I still am,” Damianos said. His chest felt too tight. “I won’t fight you. Nothing happened between us except for what you saw, and nothing else will if you don’t allow it.”

“I won’t be here to make sure you keep your word this time, will I? You hide behind a child. What kind of honorless, craven bastard—”

Laurent said, “Damianos is your only friend here, Auguste. Do you think Akielos will welcome me with open arms if you slay their king?” He put his hand on Auguste’s shoulder. Tentatively, as one would approach a wild animal: “He’s been a good friend to both of us, remember?”

“Don’t speak to me like I’m mad,” Auguste said, and shoved Laurent’s hand away. “A good friend? He’s been sneaking you into his bed behind my back, lying to my face, biding his time until—is this why you’ve followed us here? For the chance to bed my brother?”

“Auguste.”

“I left him in your care,” Auguste said. “I _trusted_ you.”

This time, when Auguste pushed, Laurent faltered, stumbling backward towards the pallet. Damianos only had a moment to grab his sword and duck Auguste’s first blow.

The tent was too small, too cramped. Damianos barely had enough room to lift his sword without slicing the ceiling open, but Auguste’s blows kept coming, fast and angry and precise.

Their duels had never been like this, not even the one at Marlas when they’d barely known each other and the peace treaty had been so new it might as well had not been real. Back then Auguste had let Damianos pick up his sword after disarming him, had helped Damianos to his feet once the whole thing was over. In Ios and Arles, despite the four-year difference, they had both laughed at the end.

Now Auguste’s aim was different. His sword cut through the air with a hiss, hitting Damianos’s, their eyes meeting over the steel. Auguste wanted to hurt him.

Every time Damianos opened his mouth, Auguste brought his sword down harder than before, faster, as if he was consciously trying to keep Damianos quiet.

In the time it took Auguste to lift his sword for the fourth time, Damianos took one frantic look around, trying to locate Laurent. One of the trunks by the bed was open, things spilling out of it like vomit: clothes, shoes, Laurent’s brush. The little wooden stool was cracked, one of its legs splintered, and the pitcher of water that had been on it was now on the floor.

Time stopped when Damianos’s sword slipped from his hand, his wrist bent at a strange angle that weakened his grip. It had been years since anyone had disarmed him. He stood there, panting, not knowing what to do.

“Auguste,” Laurent said. He was standing behind Damianos, who couldn’t turn to look at him without taking his eyes off of Auguste’s sword. “Stop.”

“Laurent,” Damianos started, and stopped when he saw Auguste hesitate.

Damianos’s sword was too far away; Auguste had kicked it away as soon as it had touched the floor. He knew, rationally, that he was bigger than Auguste, but wrestling wasn’t done like this, with a blade between two bodies, and so Damianos was forced to stay where he was. Waiting.

“You need Damianos,” Laurent said. Under different circumstances, the cold and detached way Laurent spoke of him would have hurt him. Now Damianos never wanted Laurent to shut up. “This—you’ve done enough.”

Damianos did not know why Auguste had stopped mid-blown to listen to Laurent. Auguste hadn’t lowered his sword completely, but he’d stopped. A sick feeling spread through Damianos when he saw the hurt and betrayal on Auguste’s face, which had not been there before.

He had no time to think of an explanation before Auguste was raising his sword again—for the last time, perhaps—and a flash of grey steel blinded him momentarily.

Damianos knew better than to close his eyes when an enemy was after him. That had been one of the first lessons he’d learned, Nikandros by his side, both of them holding wooden swords in the training arena. He kept his eyes open now, as Auguste’s blade started to descend and then stopped, slipping from Auguste’s hands and landing between them like a perfect line that divided it all.

When Damianos looked up from the floor where the sword lay, he realized why Auguste had dropped it in the first place.

A black arrow had pierced Auguste’s right side, above his hip. It had cut through his brown shirt, which was now turning black with blood. Auguste touched the place where arrow and flesh met with calm hands. They came away red.

Laurent shouldered past Damianos, trying to get to Auguste. His bow hit Damianos’s left foot when he dropped it, but Damianos was too numb to feel any pain. His hammering heart had not settled yet, and every breath he took hurt his dry throat.

When had Laurent reached for his bow?

Auguste took a step back when Laurent reached out to him.

“You need to see Paschal,” Laurent said. His voice wasn’t steady, as it’d been before. It sounded wet and raw and scratchy, all at the same time. “Let me—I need to break off the—”

“Don’t touch me.”

Laurent’s obvious hysteria rose, and so did his voice. “The arrow must come out right now, Auguste. Stop—stop _moving_.”

Auguste ignored him, walking backward until he was sitting on the pallet. His hands left red imprints everywhere they landed: the bedding, his own shirt, Laurent’s cheek. Damianos moved closer just as Laurent snapped the arrow, breaking it into two pieces, one of which was still inside Auguste.

The air smelled metallic. When Damianos licked his lips, he tasted sweat on them.

Laurent was trying to put pressure on the wound with his hands, but Auguste kept pushing him away. Now up close, Damianos could see why Laurent had aimed for Auguste’s side. The blood was still flowing freely, but it wasn’t a mortal wound.

“I’ll go find Paschal,” Damianos said, and received no answer.

The sky was still a dark shade of blue when Damianos stepped outside the tent. He shivered when the morning air hit him, for it was cold and he was covered in sweat, and as he advanced towards Paschal’s old tent all he could think of was how it had felt to lose his sword, fingers closing around nothing.

He had to stop twice, first to regain his breath and then to empty his mind. He kept seeing Auguste’s face, smelling his blood. It wasn’t until his stomach had settled that he felt strong enough to start moving again, his head clearing with every step that he took. What mattered now was finding Paschal. Nothing else.

By the time he’d crossed the camp, what had happened with Auguste seemed years away, dull and almost forgotten.

Jord and Paschal were standing close together, talking.

“Kempt,” Jord said. “Or the forests up north. You should—”

Paschal cut him off. “It isn’t wise to stay together. He’ll hunt you down faster that way.”

“He’ll be dead by tomorrow. I highly doubt he’ll be hunting anyone down, let alone three of his—”

“Your King needs you,” Damianos said, still five steps away from them. “He’s—injured. In my tent.”

Both men turned their heads at the same time to look at him, and both seemed surprised to see that it was Damianos who had interrupted them. Paschal moved first, not asking any questions as he headed towards Damianos’s tent. He moved fast, too, and Damianos was instantly reminded of Auguste’s words from a few days back. _He wants to atone for his crimes._

“Exalted,” Jord said, stiff and taut as if preparing to flee. “What sort of injury—”

“An arrow,” Damianos said. He could not think of a good lie, and saw no point in withholding the information anyway. “There was a disagreement, that is all.”

Something about Jord’s appearance disturbed Damianos. He was dressed in clean clothes, a leather bag slung over one of his shoulders, and nice riding boots on his feet. He looked...

“Between brothers.”

“Yes,” Damianos said. “Between brothers.” _And me_ , he thought but did not say it. Damianos’s eyes flickered to the tent, drawn by the brown spot on the cloth wall, near the ground. A black fly was resting there, unmoving. “How is he?”

“Dying,” Jord said dryly. “Paschal gave him some drops of chalis to ease him into it.”

Damianos was still reeling from his fight with Auguste to pick his words carefully. In Akielos, those who took their own lives did not even receive proper burials.

“He did it to himself,” Damianos said. In his head, he sounded comforting. “Had he waited—”

Jord’s face was red. It all came pouring out of him, like blood leaving a wound. “Waited for one of the kings to have him executed? If His Majesty dies, his uncle’s first orders will be to have the traitors killed. All of us. If he doesn’t—” He cut himself off. Out of shame or respect, Damianos did not know. Then, more calmly, “His Majesty doesn’t forget, Exalted. Nor does he forgive those who have wronged him.”

Damianos’s stomach clenched around nothing. He tasted bile in his mouth as he swallowed. “Auguste wouldn’t hurt Aimeric,” he said, even though it wasn’t Aimeric he was concerned about.

“He has before,” Jord said.

There was only silence between them. Jord’s eyes kept drifting to the brown stain on the tent, looking equally disturbed and drawn in by it. Without properly excusing himself, Jord pushed the cloth door aside and entered the tent.

Damianos thought of calling after him and didn’t. Perhaps it was time he stopped mingling with Veretians.

*

It took Damianos a long time to gather and organize everything they would need. He brought water to the horses he’d left tied to a trunk on the edge of the forest the day before, and stood there waiting for them to drink. It was best that they rested and ate now, for there would be no stops until they’d made it to Delfeur.

He gathered fruits and bread in a leather bag and tied it to his horse’s saddle. Even though he knew berries were a favorite of Laurent’s, they weren’t filling enough. He stuck to apples and pears instead.

The sky kept changing colors above him. First, a dusty pink that reminded Damianos of a blush, and then, in the blink of an eye, light-blue. The morning had fully settled in by the time Damianos was done dithering.

He didn’t want to leave the horses and walk back into the camp. He didn’t want to face Laurent or Auguste. But in the end, watching the sky, he knew it could not be delayed a second longer. They were wasting time by staying here, something they could not afford to do.

The stop by his tent was inevitable; he’d left his sword there, along with all of Laurent’s things.

Laurent’s hands were clean, no traces of Auguste’s blood on them. He was wearing the shirt he’d torn open the night before, sleeves rolled up even though the weather was not nearly warm enough.

Damianos approached him slowly, not wanting him to bolt. “What did Paschal say?”

“I don’t know,” Laurent said, looking down at his hands. “He hasn’t come out yet. I wanted—but Auguste told me to leave.”

“We have to,” Damainos said. “It’s morning already, and we said we’d leave at dawn.”

Laurent raised his head. There was blood on his cheek still, and it took everything in Damianos not to smudge it away with his thumb. This wasn’t his tent, this wasn’t nighttime. The delicate thing that had grown between them had never had a right to exist. It had always had an end date.

There couldn’t be a courtship between them after this, for Damianos could never do that to Auguste. Alive, Auguste would never allow it. Dead, Auguste wouldn’t be able to stop them, but Damianos couldn’t live with the knowledge that he had gone against Auguste’s last wish.

 _You were my friend_ , Auguste had said. It was time Damianos honored that friendship.

“You can’t make me leave now,” Laurent said. “Not after I—he hasn’t even said he forgives me for—”

“Laurent.”

“I saved your life.”

“Laurent,” Damianos said again, this time reaching out for him. The blood on Laurent’s cheek was making it hard to focus. “We have to leave. When Paschal comes out, I’ll go inside to get my sword, and we’ll—”

“You’re not listening to me.”

Damianos rubbed a hand over his face. “I won’t let you out of my sight if that’s what it takes. Will you please not make this harder than it has to be?”

Laurent said, snake-like, “Kastor didn’t—”

The tent flaps opened. Instead of Paschal’s black hair, like Damianos had been expecting to see, there was Auguste’s golden mane, a few strands turned brown by his sweat. The front of his blood-soaked shirt was open, showing the cream-colored bandages underneath. He was leaning on his sword.

Auguste started forward, each step certain and steady, even though he was using his sword to keep himself upright, like a cane.

Laurent held onto the sleeve of his shirt, tugging. “Auguste, I—”

Decidedly, Auguste shook Laurent’s hand off him. He did not even look at his brother, or at Damianos, and instead kept walking slowly but steadily towards his own tent. His limp worsened with every step he took, yet he never faltered, never dropped his sword, or stopped to regain his strength. At last, he disappeared behind the blue cloth, not once looking back.

Laurent made as if to follow, and Damianos put his hand on Laurent’s shoulder to stop him. The shoulder was neutral. He’d touched Nikandros like this a hundred times before.

“I’ll gather our things,” Damianos said, “and then we’ll leave. You have until I’m done to talk to him.”

Laurent shook off Damianos’s hand, as Auguste had done to him. He didn’t argue, but Damianos saw his clenched fists as he walked away.

Inside the tent, Paschal was cleaning a small knife with a dirty piece of grey cloth. He looked tired, and Damianos itched to ask him what had happened and whether or not Auguste would bear a scar.

Auguste wouldn’t, Damianos realized slowly, watching Paschal gather his things and slither out of the tent. He’d never scar again.

Once alone, Damianos inspected the damage. The bed was bloodied, pieces of white cloth with stains all over it. _Discarded bandages_ , his mind supplied after a second of staring. Paschal had left those behind, too eager to get away from Damianos.

The trunks were open, one of the walls torn, and clothes were everywhere. It was only when he looked at them that he realized he was still wearing the shirt he usually slept in, and that he’d run out of the tent before changing into something more acceptable. It was long enough not to shame him, yet it was not the sort of attire he would have liked to be seen in.

Damianos changed into the only Veretian outfit he owned. _You’ll attract too much attention with a chiton_ , Laurent had told him in Arles. He’d had a pair of trousers, a vest, and a shirt especially tailored for Damianos. The laces were a hassle, but Damianos managed. After all, he had no slaves to attend him here, and the thought of Pallas seeing this made him uncomfortable.

Sifting through the clothes, Damianos found Laurent’s silver hairbrush and shoved it inside the bag he’d picked from the floor. Next was Laurent’s book, which Damianos spent a long time holding in his hands. It’d fit perfectly next to the other book Auguste had gifted Laurent, the one Damianos had kept in his rooms all this time. The idea would have delighted him a fortnight ago, now he just felt bitter.

With his sword on its sheath, Damianos picked up Laurent’s bow and quiver and headed outside.

He was not expecting to see Laurent right where he’d left him, waiting.

“I told you—”

“He wouldn’t let me in,” Laurent said. “He had Huet drag me away, said he didn’t want to...” He paused to rub at his eyes in a boyish gesture. Then, quietly, “See me.”

Damianos did not know what to say. _Kastor didn’t want to see me either_ seemed like the wrong thing and so he said nothing. He wanted to pull Laurent close and hold him as he’d done during the night, but he knew it would not help. What reassuring words could he give when there were none that would suffice?

“You spent the day together yesterday,” Damianos said.

“Is that supposed to appease me? Half a day spent with my brother, pretending I’m still a thirteen-year-old boy he can keep—”

But Damianos couldn’t let him go on. Time was running out, the sky above them clear and light-blue. “Yes,” he said. “Some people get even less than that, Laurent. We can’t stay here until he decides to forgive us.”

Laurent’s fury showed itself different from Auguste’s. He was stoic in a way Auguste could only dream of being, emotions rushing from his face as if hunted down. It was a look Damianos hated on him, for he always wished to know what Laurent was thinking, what he truly felt like. He liked Laurent open and honest and true, as he’d been by the stream once, or in Ios as a child.

But Laurent surprised him again, this time by saying nothing. He didn’t argue or try to bargain for more time, taking his bow from Dramianos and slinging his quiver over his shoulder. Without Damianos having to tell him, Laurent combed through his hair using his fingers, braiding it quickly to get it away from his eyes.

“Where are our horses?”

Damianos wanted to call him out on his pretended calm but bit his tongue at the last second. Laurent was collaborating, and for now, that would have to be enough.

“Near the treeline,” he said. Then, wishing he didn’t have to, he added, “You should change. Your shirt is torn.”

Laurent didn’t look down. Instead, he rolled up the sleeves even higher up until the tear couldn’t be seen anymore.

 _There’s blood on it_ , Damianos almost said. It felt like too much effort. He couldn’t believe they had a full day’s ride ahead of them, maybe more.

Luckily, Laurent didn’t need any instructions. He was obviously still furious with Damianos, maybe with his brother as well, and he stalked his way towards the forest without having to be ordered.

Damianos watched him—the messy braid, the dirty shirt, the balled fists—and then he too followed.

*

The forest swallowed them without effort. Laurent forced his new horse to stop only once, right before the camp became a blur among the trees and leaves and rocks. He sat still and awkward in his saddle, watching as if he was hoping Auguste would change his mind and join them.

The neighing of his new horse seemed to bring Laurent back to the present and away from whatever fantasy he’d been harboring. When he turned to face Damianos, his face was like stone.

*

As they passed the stream, Laurent said nothing.

*

They’d been riding side by side for a while when Laurent cut in front of him, no word of caution or warning leaving his mouth. One second he was next to Damianos, and the next he was ahead of him, almost blocking the way.

“What are you doing?”

Laurent ignored him. He kicked the horse hard enough to make him whine and pulled at the reins so roughly Damianos heard them like the cracking of a whip. And then he was off, riding so fast and hard a cloud of dirt rose around him like smoke.

Before Damianos could tug at his own reins, Laurent had forced his horse to turn right and away from the path, disappearing into the thick mess of trees.

Damianos only wasted a second, breathing in, and then pulled at his reins so hard his horse would bear the mark. Low branches scratched at his arms as he rode, so fast the wind hurt his skin and his thighs ached from trying to hold onto the saddle under him.

He caught a glimpse of golden hair, and shouted, “Laurent, stop.”

But Laurent slipped away once more.

The frantic and blind chase seemed to go on forever, and when it ended Damianos felt a pain in his lungs, as though he might spit them out any second. One second he was lost in the cramped forest, trying to figure out in which direction to ride, and the next he had found the clearing next to the castle.

Laurent had left his horse at the edge of the forest, untied. The animal was munching on the green grass that grew in patches there, completely unaffected by it all. Almost wildly, Damianos envied it.

He dismounted and started towards the castle, hand already curled around the hilt of his sword. There were no guards at the entrance, but Damianos did not relax. If anything, he grew warier with every step he took, feeling the panic well inside him at the thought of losing two friends in the same day, both due to his own incompetence.

The crowd at the courtyard was like a small sea. Courtiers and nobles in their best clothes were gathered there, standing so close to each other Damianos had to elbow and push and step on them to force them into receding.

They wore red and black and green and blue, jewels glimmering under the midday sun. Everywhere Damianos set his eyes he could see perfect examples of what Auguste had always disliked about the south: its extravagance, its melodramatic need for ostentation.

A wooden platform that reminded Damianos of Auguste’s makeshift table had been built at the center of the courtyard. Auguste stood at one end, his uncle at the other. Between them, the five Lords that had made it out alive through the trial were ogling the crowd. Lord Rolant was talking.

Even though Damianos tried not to look at him, Auguste drew his eye. He was dressed impeccably in black and blue and silver, crownless except for his halo of blonde hair. His paleness was perhaps the only reminder of what had happened earlier that morning, yet to the unassuming eye, it was impossible to know Auguste bore any wounds.

“Your vote, Lord Rolant,” Lord Jasque said. His face was flushed and sweaty, and he kept looking up at the sun with an angry expression. “The day is far too warm to stand here for another hour.”

Lord Rolant said, “I will not be silenced by a—”

“It’d be nice to see the issue settled,” Lord Touars said. “I have already given my vote.”

There was a pause. Lord Rolant’s frustration dissipated after a while, and his voice, when he spoke again, was almost delighted. “His Majesty is the only true king in Vere.”

“Two votes for His Majesty so far.”

“And one for the true king,” Lord Peire said. “Lord Jasque, your vote.”

Lord Jasque stopped glaring at the sun and blinked, confused. After one of Lord Peire’s sharp elbows stabbed him on the side, he blurted out, “King Auguste of Vere.”

“Two against two.”

“Isn’t it delightful that you know how to count, Lord Touars? We all do.”

Lord Touars ignored the jab and, turning towards Lord Jehan, said, “The responsibility of settling this has fallen upon you, I’m afraid.”

Damianos could not bear to watch it happen. The crowd was quiet, waiting for the final vote, and it was only because of the momentary silence that Damianos heard it, the sound of a bowstring being pulled, of shuffling feet settling into position.

Without thinking, he started towards the noise, pushing noblemen as he went, stepping on leathered toes, kicking ankles. A flash of blonde hair behind one of the marble columns encouraged him, but the crowd was turning thicker with every step he took.

“—a man of his word,” Lord Jehan was saying, his voice chasing after Damianos. “Given that his uncle is not.”

Lord Rolant’s laughter was high and choked off. “Someone get this man away from the sun. The heat has started to madden him!”

Damianos reached the column, his temples throbbing and his legs tingling. The pants Laurent had gifted him were too tight around his thighs, and the blood felt trapped above his knees, pulsatingly hot.

“Laurent,” Damianos said, like a wheeze.

Laurent did not move. He did not seem surprised, which meant he had probably seen Damianos running up to him.

“Which little lordling should I get first?” Laurent said. “I’m thinking of Lord Touars.”

“They’ll see us the moment you lose that arrow,” Damianos said.

“They haven’t seen us yet.”

“Because they’re too busy watching the show. Don’t make me carry you. Laurent, let go.”

Laurent said, “Be quiet. I think—”

Damianos had had enough. He grabbed Laurent’s elbow hard and pulled, twisting his arm in a way that forced him to let go of the bow. The arrow fell instead, rattling against the marble floor. The sound carried.

He pressed Laurent against the column before a lady in a green dress could slam into them.

“Explain your choice,” Lord Touars said.

“Why should he? This isn’t the time to debate. We’ve had half a day to ponder, and it is obvious Lord Jehan has reconsidered—”

Damianos turned his head in time to see Auguste’s uncle step closer to Lord Jehan. There were murmurs now, whispers in accented Veretian that rippled through the courtyard in waves.

“You fool,” their uncle said. “What has he promised you? Land? Gold? You betray me for nothing.”

Lord Jehan stayed silent.

“He’ll kill you when this is over like he’s killed every man who has ever defied him.”

Damianos dared to look at Auguste again. He looked neither surprised nor pleased by this change in his situation, his face so indifferent he looked not like himself. Damianos would have preferred his rage, as wild and unhinged as it had made Auguste look that morning, for rage was something Damianos could understand.

Lord Rolant let out a nervous laugh. “His Majesty, that isn’t—he couldn’t do that even if he wanted to. The laws are clear, aren’t they?”

“He gave his word,” Lord Touars said. “He signed—”

“Why,” said Auguste, “would I have my bride’s father murdered?”

Damianos felt Laurent stiffen against him, turning as rigid as the column they were both hiding behind. It reminded him of Laurent’s body that same morning when Auguste had walked in on them.

“Nephew, that is reason enough to dismiss Lord Jehan’s vote. A union like that means he isn’t impartial. What a shame you have resorted to such schemes.”

“Then we should dismiss Lord Rolant’s vote as well,” Auguste said. “And Lord Touars’. It has been brought to my attention that you have gifted them titles and lands. You even told Lord Orlant he could have Arles after the trial, for you would move the capital to Lys.”

“I—”

“You also promised Lord Rolant you would marry his daughter. And to Lord Jehan, you swore the same thing. Shall we dismiss all your judges? That leaves you without votes, uncle.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Then you admit Lord Jehan’s vote in my favor,” Auguste said. “And thus admit your defeat.”

“A new trial,” Lord Touars said, and now the panic was bleeding into his words, twisting their ends. “We must have a new trial. We are all clearly unfit to—”

“Lord Jehan, will you marry your only daughter to the man that had his last betrothed publicly shamed and executed?”

Lord Jehan said, “She was a traitor.”

“So are you, in the eyes of my nephew. You will pay for this mistake with your life.”

Auguste stepped forward. It was a slow, painful step, and Damianos imagined the wood of the platform creaking under his boot. Tilting his head back the slightest bit, he faced the sun without blinking or scrunching up his nose. In that single moment, his calm expression gave way to something darker, a stark contrast to the beauty the sunlight was enhancing.

“We’ve played this game for years,” Auguste said, now turning towards his uncle. “And now, when it mattered the most, you’ve lost.”

The man looked just as calm as Auguste. He said, “The south won’t follow your lead. Execute me now and lose half of Vere to an uprising.”

“Ah, I see. Are you suggesting I let you live, allowing you to rule the southern provinces in my name?”

“I am offering you peace, nephew. A way to end the fighting.”

“Because you’d lose if a war broke out,” Auguste said. “We were even before, but now I hold Lord Jehan’s province. And I will make sure whatever allies you have left know how generous I am to those on my side.”

“Your Majesty,” Lord Peire said, eyes on the buzzing crowd. Murmurs were rising, slowly but steadily. “Perhaps this isn’t the place to—”

“I’ve beaten you fairly,” Auguste said. “If you kneel for me now, in front of your people, I’ll consider letting you live.” A pause followed. “In fact, I’ll pardon those who have followed you all these years, granted they kneel and swear fealty to me.”

Damianos saw it as if in a dream: a pale hand darting upwards from the sea of red and blue, hurling something small and solid at Auguste, who ducked effortlessly.

A single insult followed, familiarly painful. Laurent’s breath hitched.

“Huet,” Auguste said, as if the name on its own was a command.

It was hard to locate him at first, but soon enough Huet was moving through the crowd **,** shouldering past men and women alike to get to the source of the riot. In those next few moments, those in red had started to move, some of them away from the platform and others closer to it. A second hand rose, but this time Antoine caught the woman by the wrist to stop her from throwing anything.

Damianos thought panic would burst and spread, that people would flee the courtyard in a desperate attempt to get away from what was about to happen. But no one moved. None of the guards dressed in red tried to stop it, and no orders came from Auguste’s uncle either.

Huet and Antoine brought the couple forward, all the way up to the stage. They stood, pressed against each other, close to shivering, until Antoine kicked the man’s calf, making him stumble. With only one hard shove, Huet had the woman on her knees.

Auguste’s expression remained the same, his posture completely unaffected by the affront. He circled the couple, so slowly it was almost torturing to watch, and came to a stop by the man’s right side.

“Beg,” Auguste said.

Damianos tasted the bile in the back of his throat. This was the sort of thing his father might have enjoyed. Or Kastor.

The woman was the first to break. She pressed her forehead to Auguste’s boots, trembling hands grazing his heels. “Your Majesty. It was—nothing. Nothing but a reckless…” She paused, and Damianos heard the wavering of her voice as if she were standing right next to him. “Your Majesty, I am—”

“And you?” Auguste said, looking at the man at his feet. “Won’t you do as I command? Are you loyal to my uncle?”

The man remained silent, head bowed.

“Your sword, Huet.”

Huet unsheathed it and handed it over without a word. It was a strange request, for a king should have had his own sword with him. And then Damianos remembered the bright red blood oozing from Auguste’s side, the broken arrow. Swords were heavy, carried at the hip.

And why would Auguste bring his today, if he’d been so sure of his defeat?

Auguste’s uncle shared a look with his guards at the front line. There was a command there, the sort of silent order Damianos had been around since he was a boy—his father had asked for silence with a single glance and support with a hand gesture. The men, however, only stood watching. Waiting.

Auguste held the sword in his right hand, clutching his side with his free one. “Your given name.”

The man did not look up. “Louis.”

“Louis,” Auguste repeated. “You’ve refused to kneel for your king. Surely you know what that means.”

“You’re not my king.”

Auguste’s uncle smiled, pleased. Lord Rolant seemed to relax against Lord Touars as if deflating.

Auguste brought the sword down, swiftly and efficiently. Huet must have honed the blade the night before, for it was so sharp it cut through the flesh and bone like they were silk.

Louis’ body sat there, on its haunches, for another moment. And then it fell forward, blood bursting from the open neck as if under pressure. His head hit the wooden stage with a dull thud and did not roll, not one inch, unlike Kastor’s.

The Lords wore disgusted expressions. Lord Touars was paler than usual, still not recovered from Lord Jehan’s betrayal, but he did not say a word to complain or stop what was happening.

“Your Majesty,” Lord Jasque said. “Perhaps—”

Auguste was clutching his side, his face blank but spasming. In pain. He let go of his own hip to grab the woman’s wrist.

She was crying. “I—begged—Majesty—”

He ignored her and, without a word of explanation or apology, brought the sword down again, slicing the sleeve of her red dress and the skin underneath. Her arm fell when Auguste dropped it, thin delicate fingers still twitching.

The woman had stopped her whining. She was very silent, staring at the place where her hand had been, twisting what was left of her arm as though she could not quite believe it was gone. Her blood dribbled lazily to the wood. Like a rag doll, she too slumped forward and collapsed onto the wood, fainting.

“Let this be your lesson,” Auguste said. His shirt was bloodied, but Damianos had a feeling some of it was his own blood. Whatever stitches Paschal had managed to come up with were surely ripped open now, what with the force of those two blows Auguste had administered. “Now kneel, or join your brother and sister in their suffering. It’s a simple choice.”

The guards in blue were the first ones to kneel. They were followed by a small group of ladies in the middle of the crowd, and then by two men in red at the back. Slowly, men and women alike were kneeling, sinking to the ground as if the mere act of standing on their two feet brought them pain.

After a moment’s hesitation, the guards with red cloaks lowered themselves as well.

Auguste turned to his uncle, sword in hand. They looked at each other in silence, their physical resemblance so revolting Damianos felt compelled to close his eyes. Had someone told Damianos the man standing there was Auguste’s father, he would not have doubted them.

“Hold him,” Auguste said to Huet and Antoine. “Tightly, may I suggest.”

“Your Majesty,” Lord Jasque said, his face red and burning and sweaty. “What—”

Auguste ignored him. “I want every red banner scorched. If by the time I return any Lord or Lady is wearing the traitor’s color, I will have them burned as well.”

Lord Touars’ pale face became a washed-out shade of yellow. “Return?”

“Yes,” Auguste said. He started towards the steps that would bring him to ground level again. “Now follow me. We have much to discuss.”

Auguste’s uncle didn’t struggle. He let himself be escorted by Antoine and Huet, a small smile on his face. The Lords followed in a neat line, walking behind Auguste towards the castle.

They disappeared inside, taking the silence with them. No sooner had the door closed behind them than the crowd began to disperse, shouting and murmuring all at the same time.

Laurent did not ask to follow Auguste. Damianos did not suggest it either.

The courtyard was emptying, but so were the stables. Some guards had discarded their cloaks and torn open the doors where the horses were kept, poorly placing saddles as they herded the animals out into the sunlight. It seemed many did not believe Auguste’s word that he would be forgiving, but Damianos could not blame them for it. He did not know if he believed it himself.

One of the escaping riders almost crushed a woman on his way to the entrance, and although he was so fast Damianos could not even see his face or clothes, he recognized the horse instantly.

It was Laurent’s mare.

Damianos turned to Laurent, the accusation dying in his mouth when he saw Laurent’s expression.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Damianos said at last, because there was nothing more to be said. He couldn’t chase down the thief and leave Laurent alone. “We need to go back to the camp and—”

“No,” Laurent said. He said it so plainly, as though there was no other option but to refuse, and before Damianos could try and convince him otherwise, he pushed away from the column and started walking.

Around him, chaos reigned. Guards, ladies, and young men had torn off their clothes, dumping them into a neat pile the color of wine. It was a heap of blood-like cloth, and soon it was burning, crinkling flames devouring it all after a woman touched it with a torch. They stood around it in various stages of disarray, in breeches, in undershirts, in white and flowy skirts.

Damianos followed Laurent into the gardens, stopping twice to avoid being crushed by a horse. By the time he’d reached the entrance, Laurent was just a few steps ahead, still advancing firmly and steadily as if unaware of the hell in the courtyard.

The gardens were even more beautiful than Damianos remembered. All the roses had bloomed, and the air was sticky with their smell. It was sweet and ripe, the sort of spring Damianos had only ever experienced in Ios.

Laurent stopped walking, his whole body freezing mid-movement as if turning into stone. It did not take long for Damianos to see why.

The body in the fountain floated face-down, bright green clothes sticking to it like moss. It was midday and so the sun cast no shadows, leaving room for no confusion. His brown curls were gone, flattened and blackened by the water, sticking to his skull without volume or shape.

Damianos remembered him trying to guess what was in Laurent’s closed hand, remembered his sharp blue eyes and belled throat. Remembered him standing on the edge of the fountain, contemptuous and angry, a young boy that was mad at the passage of time.

 _I’m not fifteen_ , he’d said.

Whether he’d been telling the truth did not matter, for Nicaise would not turn a day older now.

Laurent took a step towards the water, and then another. He did not struggle when Damianos held him back, gently, by the arm. If anything, he turned to Damianos as if surprised to find him there.

Damianos knew what Laurent wanted. How he knew it was inexplicable even to himself, but there was a deeper, darker certainty in Damianos as well, that pushed and pulled at him, that eclipsed all other thought: it could not be done. The horror of moving the body, of seeing Nicaise’s face, would be more than Laurent could bear.

“We’ll ask the guards to—” Damianos paused, searching Laurent’s face. At last, he said, awkwardly, “Handle it.”

Laurent said nothing, turning his head towards the fountain again. His eyes were dry and very wide, pale eyelashes turning golden under the sun. His lips parted, only to close again a second later.

“Come now,” Damianos said, bracing himself for a protest that never came.

Laurent let it happen. His hands were very cold in Damianos’s, and they stayed that way, no matter how often Damianos rubbed them together or tried to tuck them into his shirt.

*

Only Damianos’s horse remained. The other one had most likely been snatched by a desperate nobleman or guard, who’d stumbled into the forest and found himself with the easy choice of stealing an untied horse.

The saddle wasn’t big enough to fit both of them comfortably, but removing it wasn’t an option, not when the leather bag full of provisions and Laurent’s things was attached to it. Letting Laurent ride on his own was, as Damianos had learned that day, a terrible idea.

Damianos mounted first and then offered both of his hands for Laurent to take, for Laurent wasn’t tall enough to do it on his own.

Laurent stared at Damianos’s hands for a moment, as if he did not quite know what to do with them, and then grasped them both tightly as Damianos hoisted him up and onto the front part of the saddle.

Ignoring the rabbit-like beating of his own heart, Damianos curled an arm around Laurent’s waist and tugged softly at the reins with his free hand. He wanted to go back to the camp as quickly as possible, but he also knew rushing wouldn’t help either of them. Damianos’s stomach was still tight and painfully cramped, the image of Nicaise’s body still dancing behind his eyelids when he closed them, and so it was better to ride slowly. He did not think Laurent felt any better than he did.

It wasn’t until they’d made it to the path that the idea came to Damianos, making him pull at the reins to stop his horse. He waited for Laurent to complain, to ask what had interrupted their ride, but Laurent stayed silent.

Damianos thought of the camp and what awaited for them there—the fleeing men, the empty tents, the stench of smoke—and decided it could all wait for another hour. The dream he’d had that morning came back to him as he pulled at the reins again, forcing his horse to turn left and away from the path.

The stream looked different from what Damianos had imagined. The soft morning glow was gone, replaced by the dancing shadows of fluttering leaves and swaying branches, but the water glittered the same as it had in his mind, a slow river of liquid jewels.

Dismounting was easy, despite the discomforts of the saddle. He and Laurent stood face to face for a moment, both of them listening to the sounds around them, until at last Laurent moved away from him and towards the stream.

Laurent stood by the water, so close the tips of his riding boots were getting wet. He said, “I won the bet.”

With growing discomfort, Damianos realized they were, in fact, going to talk about this. He had taken Laurent away, foolishly hoping what had happened in the gardens wouldn’t follow them here, that he’d get to have this, as selfish as it was, for one more day. He should have known Laurent wouldn’t let it go.

When had Laurent made things easy between them?

Damianos stepped closer, wanting to touch him and knowing he could not. He settled for standing next to Laurent, the backs of their hands brushing.

“I,” Damianos started. The words dissolved in his mouth. He was too tired to be angry at Laurent, to tell him off for running away.

Laurent’s eyes remained on the water.

“Govart wasn’t there today,” Damianos said eventually. “But he can’t have gone far.”

“It wasn’t Govart.”

“Last time I saw him, he was—”

“Govart is dead,” Laurent said. “I used your dagger on him.”

Like a vision, Damianos saw the blood on Laurent’s cheek, the pale and wild look on his face when he’d walked into the trial the day before. _A guard tried to stop me_ , he’d said, and Damianos had assumed he was talking about Lazar.

“I tried to warn Nicaise.”

Damianos heard the pain there, poorly concealed and throbbing. He said the first thing that came to him, which was: “I’m sorry.”

Laurent did not reply. Damianos could see that he wanted to, for his lips would part ever so slightly one moment only to turn into a tight line that kept the flood of words inside the next. He was as quiet and still as he’d been pressed against Damianos in the courtyard, behind the column.

Into the silence, Damianos said, “It won’t go unpunished. Your uncle—”

“That’s enough.”

But Damianos kept seeing it, in his head. Nicaise and his biting comments, lounging lazily by the water. And his sky-colored eyes, bright blue, big and wide and just like Laurent’s. “It wasn’t right. He was just a boy.”

Laurent turned to look at him as if he could hear the words Damianos wasn’t saying, as if he could hear Damianos’s thoughts, his frantic wish to push it all away and under as he’d done that morning. 

“I said that’s enough.”

 _Is it so hard to hear_ , Damianos thought, _even now?_

He searched for words and came up with nothing, for he knew there was nothing that could be said. The silence around them, between them, felt stifling and wrong, but no matter how hard Damianos struggled to break it, he soon found he could not.

Damianos’s Veretian clothes were tight, especially around his calves and thighs, and as he lowered himself to the ground the fear that the seams would burst open flooded him, only to disappear a moment later when nothing happened. He reached out, without really looking, for Laurent’s hand, and once he had it in his he gave it a tentative tug, to which Laurent responded by slowly sinking down next to him.

“Auguste has won,” Damianos said. He waited for the sly remark that should have followed— _that much is obvious_ , Laurent would say—and when it did not come, he added, “Things will be different for you now. Better.”

A sharp exhale of air, like a snort. “Is that what you think?”

“It’s me he’s angry at,” Damianos said. “Not you.”

“I pierced his side with an arrow.”

“You’re his brother.”

“And you were his friend,” Laurent said. _Yet he still tried to kill you_. He reached out to touch the water and froze halfway through, his fingers rigid and clawlike just inches above the surface. He pulled back. “Perhaps he’ll have me hanged. Isn’t it treason to make the king bleed?”

Damianos closed his eyes. The urge to be sick was too strong. Instead of answering, he lay down on the wet ground.

Laurent followed a moment later.

Above them, the treetops seemed to take up the whole sky, small gaps of blue in a sheet of dark green leaves. There were birds, too. Small and black, they seemed to hop from one tree to the other, landing on the tips of branches with awing ease.

Laurent said, “You’ll go back to Akielos.”

“I have to.”

“You have to,” Laurent said in a matter-of-fact voice. “You’ll marry a Patran princess, or a daughter of the Empire. Nikandros will be pleased.”

Damianos didn’t contradict him, didn’t say anything as Laurent shifted impossibly close, pressing his forehead to Damianos’s shoulder. A gust of wind made the leaves flutter.

“You’ll have,” Laurent started, and stopped.

 _A son_ , Damianos imagined him saying. It had been some time since Damianos had tortured himself with such thoughts, yet the sting he felt at Laurent’s words wasn’t dull or faded. It felt terribly real.

He focused on the way Laurent’s hair felt in his hand, between his fingers. He wanted to go lower, to touch the knobs of Laurent’s spine through his clothes, to memorize every inch of him, every small pink scar, every brown freckle.

This was all he’d have of Laurent from now on, the ghost of a moment, a memory that would shift and change every time Damianos went back to it. And one day he’d be unable to tell what had been true about their time together and what parts he’d made up. The sharp edges would blur and disappear, and, eventually, so would Laurent.

“Maybe he’ll allow you to visit in a while,” Damianos said, watching the smoke-like outline of a cloud. “When things have… settled.”

“Maybe,” Laurent said.

A dust-covered part of Damianos wanted to be angry. Where, it asked, was Laurent’s joy at his brother’s victory? Wasn’t this what he’d wanted, what they had both wanted, all along? Hadn’t they begged that Auguste be allowed to live?

The bloodshed mattered very little to Damianos, who understood now better than ever before the lesson his father had tried to teach him at fifteen, and yet… There was an acrid taste in his mouth that refused to fade when he thought of all the senseless death that he’d witnessed, and all the slaughter that was yet to come.

Laurent pressed his cheek to Damianos’s collarbone. The weight of him, half on top of Damianos, was real. He was tugging at the front laces of Damianos’s shirt, eyes half-closed.

He wasn’t a memory yet.

*

Laurent’s tent looked the same as last time Damianos had been in it, clean and tidy, his bed tightly made and the pillows on it new-looking. Untouched. It wasn’t until Damianos set the oil lamp down and the light shifted that he noticed the mess on the floor.

There were slices of bread near Damianos’s right foot, a sticky mess of honey and water, a silver pitcher. When he turned to Laurent, silently asking for an explanation, he caught a glimpse of something raw and unfiltered before Laurent wiped his face clean of any expression.

“Auguste,” Laurent said as an explanation.

That morning seemed days away. Now that Damianos stopped to think about it, he realized he hadn’t questioned why Auguste had suddenly burst into his tent. He’d never done that before, partly because Damianos was a king, and partly because Auguste wasn’t Lazar.

But he’d been looking for Laurent. _You weren’t in your tent_ , Auguste had said, because he’d come here first, a breakfast tray in his hands, which he’d dropped when he realized the tent was empty. He’d been hoping to spend an uninterrupted morning with Laurent. His last morning.

Laurent bent down and started picking up the mess. Damianos could only stare at him as he worked, unable to move or even breathe past his guilt. He suddenly wished he was in Ios, away from Laurent, from Auguste, from Vere.

Once he was done, Laurent took the bag from Damianos without a word, dumping all the contents on the bed so he could put them away in his trunk. He went for the hairbrush first, and stopped.

Damianos watched him pick up the stack of letters. The wax seal was Auguste’s, a blue starburst.

Still, Laurent said, “What is this?”

“Letters,” Damianos said. At Laurent’s frown, he added, “I was to give them to you once we had reached Delfeur. Auguste thought—” He stopped, not knowing how to finish that sentence. He did not know what Auguste had thought.

“Have you read them?”

“The wax seal is intact,” Damianos said dryly. “As you can see.”

Laurent turned the stack in his hands, fingers tracing the star. He sat on the bed and stared at Auguste’s gift for a long time, but made no move to open any letter.

As he often had when he was younger, Damianos felt like an intruder. It made him uncomfortable, the way Laurent was cradling the letters, the way he kept touching the seal. There was an intimacy there, and Damianos wasn’t a part of it.

He missed Nikandros, all of the sudden.

“I have to speak to Pallas,” Damianos said. A small lie that, hopefully, had not made his voice waver. Laurent did not look at him. “I—won’t be back. Tonight.”

“I know,” Laurent said. “It’d be unfortunate for us to be caught together again.”

Without Auguste in the room, without any swords or threats, the way Laurent spoke of it, of what had happened between them, hurt. It was detachedly simple, edging on cruel. Damianos did not have the strength to deal with it and, retreating like a wounded animal, left the tent.

He didn’t want to enter his, the memory of Auguste’s blood on his bedsheets still too sharp, but there was nowhere else to go. He wanted to be alone and away, both at the same time. He wished he and Laurent had never left the stream.

*

“The king wants to see you,” Antoine said. He struggled with the next word in a way that reminded Damianos of Lazar. After a stretched out minute, he finished, “Exalted.”

Damianos paused, putting down the shirt he’d been about to fold and put away into his trunk. He ogled his sword, leaning against the pallet, but knew he couldn’t reach out for it. He had no excuse for walking into Auguste’s tent with a weapon, especially not after what had happened between them that morning.

Wordlessly, Damianos followed Antoine outside and across the camp, marveling at how silent everything was. He had not even heard their party returning, and it seemed there would be no celebrations tonight if the stillness at the camp was anything to go by. Guards stood around the bonfire, outside the Lords’ tents, outside Auguste’s. They did not speak a word.

There were four men by Laurent’s tent. Despite it all, Damianos felt it like a personal offense. Did Auguste think he’d sneak in during the night, a ravishing beast?

Huet stood guard outside Auguste’s tent. The silver pin that had once belonged to Jord was on his chest, impossible to ignore. Jord and Aimeric both were to Damianos the ghosts of a different time, people whose faces he was sure he’d forget in the morning. He felt curious, but not enough to bother with questions.

Damianos did not enter right away. He could feel Antoine’s eyes on him like two daggers, boring into the back of his head, but he ignored them. Was it too late to turn around, to summon Pallas? What would be the consequence of refusing to play along with Auguste’s game?

It wouldn’t be the lash, this Damianos knew. Kings were not whipped, no matter what atrocities they committed. Still, as he left Huet and Antoine behind, Damianos thought that given the choice between the lash and a conversation with Auguste, he might actually choose the lash.

Auguste sat on the far end of the table, one leg crossed over the other in a posture of feigned relaxation. His shirt wasn’t the white color it had been at midday, under the sun. A circular brown spot took up most of the front, but there were also little dots and lines of faded red around the neckline. Without surprise, Damianos realized it was dried blood.

There were towels on the bed and a wooden tub filled to the brim with steaming water. The heat was nauseating, summer-like, yet Damianos forced himself to ignore it.

Eventually, once he had reached the table, Damianos stopped walking. He did not sit down, for Auguste had not asked him to do so, had extended no invitations. Damianos was secretly glad; he wanted this to be over as soon as possible.

“I believe,” Auguste said, “that you have outstayed your welcome in Vere, Damianos.”

Damianos clenched his jaw and relaxed it. “I—“

“I haven’t summoned you here to hear your apologies.” Auguste leaned back on the chair, which creaked under his weight. His hands were very tightly clasped over his kneecap. A thick silver ring. “Or your excuses. I simply want back what I gave to you yesterday.”

It hurt to be dismissed like this as if whatever friendship they had cultivated for four years had been one-sided. As if everything between them had always been politically stiff and formal. Auguste’s letter had been the first one he’d read after his father’s death, and his words were the only ones he still remembered.

“Auguste,” Damianos said.

“I don’t want to hear it. Send Pallas with my things before the executions begin tomorrow.”

Damianos swallowed back the feeble attempts at explaining himself he could feel clogging his throat and held onto the only strong feeling he had left: anger.

Auguste had sent for him. He’d planned this encounter, wanting to have the last word. He could have easily made Antoine or Huet fetch his crown, the letters, everything. And yet he’d chosen this, because he knew it would be humiliating.

Perhaps for both of them.

“You knew you were going to win,” Damianos said. “Lord Jehan told you he’d vote for you.” He was glad for the table between them, for every inch that separated their bodies. Had they been standing closer, Damianos wouldn’t have hesitated to strike Auguste. “That’s what you stayed behind to discuss. Yet you made us all think—you made Laurent—”

Auguste said, very slowly, “Keep your mouth off my brother.”

“He came to me, certain you would die, and all along you knew—”

“I didn’t. Only a fool would have believed Lord Jehan. ‘A vote in exchange for a marriage’.” Auguste rose from his seat, eyes colder than Laurent’s had ever been, even at his worst. “Should I have told the whole camp? Had an early celebration? How was I to know the man spoke truthfully, that it wasn’t another one of my uncle’s traps?”

“You should have told me.”

Auguste’s hatred seemed to come off of him in waves. His nails made a scratching sound when he dug them into the wooden table. “Like you told me about Laurent?”

Damianos felt his anger slipping away, and fought to hold onto it. Guilt nibbled at him, at the sharp edges of his fury. “I was going to.”

“The night I gave you my letters,” Auguste said, “it wasn’t a pet in your bed, it was him. And yet you stood there and lied to my face.”

“We haven’t—”

“Go ahead. Tell me you haven’t shared a bed.”

Damianos thought, only for a split-second, of telling him about Laurent’s time in Ios. How they’d held hands in the dark, and what it had meant to both of them. How it had started again at Chastillon. But he knew Auguste would not understand it.

“My father was right about Akielons,” Auguste said. Every word he spoke widened the table, pushing them further away from each other. “You’re a savage, like the rest of your countrymen. You have no honor.” His fingers twitched on the table. “I’m not surprised my brother sought you out. He seems to have a taste for shameless cowards.”

Anger came back to Damianos, engulfing him completely. He could not think beyond the pulsating need to hurt. Had he and the man standing in front of him ever been friends? Was this Auguste the one Damianos had missed and laughed with, the one who’d sat at his table and shared wine and stories with him?

“An honorable man would have killed your uncle sooner,” Damianos said. Nicaise’s body, floating in the fountain, came to him. Cruelly, he wished Auguste had been there to see it instead of Laurent. “You spent years hiding in your golden palace, doing nothing. The truth is you weren’t good enough to beat your uncle.”

Auguste’s right cheek caved in. “I’m standing here and he isn’t. Do you call that defeat?”

“I call it luck.”

The cracking sound of Auguste’s knuckles was his only response.

Damianos ached for his sword. Even a dagger would have been better than this, all the snarling and biting, the never-ending prelude to a physical blow. He was tired of it all, of Auguste’s wrath, of Vere.

“I’ll be gone in the morning,” Damianos said. He touched the back of one of the chairs as if to ground himself to that moment. He’d remember every word, along with the tiny splinters and the coarse wood against his skin. “Pallas will bring you your things, provided Laurent gives them to him. I hope—” He stopped, he couldn’t. Auguste wouldn’t forgive him, and Damianos did not know how to beg. “The peace treaty still stands. Akielos won’t take advantage of your situation.”

“My situation.”

“Half of Vere hates you. A crown on your head won’t change that, not overnight. You said it yourself: you have no army, no military defense.” Damianos forced himself to hold Auguste’s piercing gaze. “If I wanted to, I could take Delfeur from you.” _Maybe more_ , he thought and did not say it. He knew Auguste knew it too.

“Should I thank you for it?” Auguste said. Venom dripped from every sound that came out of his mouth, thicker than honey and not nearly as sweet. “Try and take Delfeur from me. I won’t be as merciful as I was to your father. You dare threaten me in my own kingdom?”

“It’s not a threat,” Damianos said. “It’s a warning. I know you, and I know how much it would benefit you to war with me.”

“I have no army, as you’ve so kindly pointed out. Who would follow me to war?”

“Half of Vere hates you, but they hate Akielons more. Don’t—” Damianos tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling of the tent. Auguste’s expression was making his skin crawl. “Don’t pretend like the idea hasn’t crossed your mind. It’d be the perfect excuse for unity.”

The laugh that came from Auguste was perfunctory. “Unlike you, I’m not in the habit of betraying my allies. You and Laurent truly deserve each other, what with the way your minds work. I don’t think I’ve ever met such vipers.”

 _Perhaps he’ll have me hanged_ , Laurent had said. The piercing discomfort of that idea came back to Damianos. Now, with Auguste standing in front of him, strange and unrecognizable, Damianos had a hard time convincing himself that Laurent’s joke was exactly that. A joke.

Maybe it wasn’t too late to try. In anger, Auguste was known to make rash decisions, and the idea of seeing himself free of Laurent might be exciting enough to him now, while the wound was still fresh. While he still thought of his brother as a viper in need of correction.

“I care about Laurent,” Damianos said slowly. “I can only ask you for the opportunity to prove—”

“No. I won’t let you make a mockery of him. You’ve done enough harm as it is.”

“Is the idea of him being betrothed to me so repulsive to you that you can’t even consider it?”

Auguste circled the table. He stopped a few steps away from Damianos, two chairs between them. His hands went to his hip, where the hilt of his sword should have been, and then retreated back to his sides, trembling.

“I’d rather he were dead than another slave in your harem,” Auguste said. “You’ll court him for a month, maybe even less than that. And then when you tire of him you’ll move along to the next blonde whore that looks in your direction.”

It was wrong. Damianos opened his mouth to tell him so, to explain in detail exactly what he wanted from Laurent, what it would mean to him to have someone by his side whom he’d struggled and ached and loved with. And instead what poured out of him was another truth.

“Best he stays with you then,” Damianos said, “and lets your anger fester him. Will you drag him back to Arles and keep him there as you’ve always done? No one will ever be good enough for him in your eyes, and so he will never leave you. It’s what you want, is it not? To have him at your mercy.”

“You—”

“Ask him what he prefers then. Are you so confident that he’ll follow you, given a choice?”

Auguste turned away from him then. He stared at the steam coming from the wooden tub and pressed his closed fist to the wound on his side. A fresh set of clothes awaited him on the bed, Damianos saw,

“Be gone in the morning,” Auguste said, “or I’ll show you what it’s like to be at my mercy.”

Damianos didn’t care about having the last word. Before he left, he caught a glimpse of Auguste as he undressed, pale fingers trembling as they struggled with the laces. In any match, in any fight, Damianos could take him down if he wanted to.

The thought far from being comforting.

*

In the lonely darkness of his tent, Damianos lay awake, trying hard not to think of the empty spot in his bed Laurent had occupied the night before. He wished for sleep, yet it evaded him. Frustrated, Damianos turned on his back, then rolled over on his stomach. Then shifted again.

It was quiet outside. Damianos could hear his own breathing and if he concentrated hard enough, the beating of his heart resonated in his ears, a dull echo of a drum. Everything else was muffled and distant, as though everyone had left the camp after sunset.

Any other night he would have found the silence comforting, a small blessing after a tiring day. But tonight Damianos yearned for noise, for blabber. He wanted whispered jokes and smothered laughter, and hated himself for it.

The roar of galloping horses caught him wide awake and tangled in his sheets. The noise grew and grew and all he could think of was that southerners had come to set the camp on fire, to slaughter Auguste in his sleep, to take Laurent as a hostage.

Damianos was on his feet before he could think things through, hands grabbing his sword from beside his bed. He stood there in the darkness, straining his ears for screams, for anything that signaled danger.

Instead, the loud whine of a trumpet.

With his heart in his throat, Damianos moved one of the tent flaps, just enough to see who had come and what Auguste was going to do about it. He’d been expecting utter darkness, for he’d sworn everyone had gone to sleep already, but was surprised to find men with lit torches in their hands, still on their horses.

Only one of them was familiar, even from a distance. Lord Jehan was at the front of the small party, leading them. Beside him, on a small horse, was a woman whose face couldn’t be seen, not because of the angle or the darkness, but because she wore a black veil that hid her features perfectly.

Lord Jehan dismounted and turned to help her down. The smallest of crowns sat upon her head, golden and jewel-less. She was Auguste’s bride.

Damianos let the tent flap close, pulling back. He hadn’t thought… The ring on Auguste’s finger had not been merely the physical evidence of his promise to Lord Jehan, after all. There wouldn’t be courtship between Auguste and this woman, for they’d already married.

He felt very, very tired all of a sudden. His bed taunted him, and Damianos considered crawling back under the covers and trying to smother himself with the pillows. But there was also curiosity in him, along with dread. Both emotions pulled at him, and eventually, his curiosity won. He looked again.

Auguste had come out of his tent to receive both the Lord and his daughter into the camp. He was completely alone, which Damianos thought was foolish, for he was surrounded by men who’d wanted him dead less than a fortnight ago.

Lord Jehan put his daughter’s hand on Auguste’s shoulder and held it there for a second. Auguste’s shirt and her skin were the same colors: pearly white, ghostly. Now that she was standing closer to the lit torches, Damianos saw that her veil wasn’t black, but deep blue.

Slowly, as Auguste and Lord Jehan talked, the rest of the southern party retreated back into the woods. The Lord’s horse remained, but his daughter’s was pulled by the reins, away from the camp. It felt strangely final, the way signing a treaty often did.

Lord Peire and Lord Jasque joined them. Damianos had been so focused on Auguste he did not see them arrive.

Damianos knew little about Veretian ceremonies, but he’d always known about their wedding traditions. It was the sort of thing he’d grown up listening to, sitting at his father’s table while Theomedes talked to the Kyros of Delpha, the man closest to Vere.

They were a mockery, an excuse for depravity. Public consummations were for animals, not kings.

The girl was led into the tent, Auguste’s hand splayed on her back. All the lords followed, even her father. Damianos stood there, watching in the shadows, until the entrance to Auguste’s tent closed, swallowing them all.

Damianos lay back on his bed. Sleep took pity on him, at last, and dragged him to a place without courtships or executions. He thought he might see the fire, those flames that seemed to reach the sky, for he always did when he felt like this. But the heat and the smoke did not bother him that night.

There was only the stream, dark and deserted. Even the stars were gone.

*

“Did you do as you said you would? Did you see them?”

Damianos turned away from the voices. He’d thought the stables would be empty at this hour, sometime before dawn broke, but he’d obviously been wrong. Drunk guards were huddled in one of the stalls, passing around a bottle of wine Damianos could smell even from where he was standing, the wood between them doing nothing to keep the acrid stench of grapes away.

His horse needed to be fed, and he did not want to ask Pallas for anything. Auguste’s men were not an option either, not when Damianos was sure they had orders to pierce him with their blades if they saw him roaming the camp once morning had set in.

A loud, wobbly laughter. The man said, “I didn’t stand that close. I’m no fool, Archard.”

“But did you see—”

Another voice, higher in pitch: “I heard he got too mad and killed her.”

“She’s not dead, imbecile.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t, but why would he—”

“Was the Prince there, you reckon?”

“To help him—” A hiccup. “Get it up.”

Laugher, now more nervous than before. Damianos’s hands turned to fists around the reins he was holding. Was this how Akielons spoke of him behind his back? Was the secret to kingship to never hear these things, to never be in on the jokes?

“She had a veil,” one of the men went on. He did not sound nearly as drunk as Damianos had expected. “Cerne told me he refused to let her take it off, fucked her with her whole face covered.”

Damianos walked out of his stall, out of the stables, tugging at the reins so his horse would follow. The laughter faded with every step he took, blanketed by the wood and hay. Soon he heard no more.

*

At first, when Damianos saw Auguste and his guards standing close to the forest line, panic seized him. It wasn’t absolute fear, for he knew he could take them all as long as Pallas also fought by his side. All of them except for one. But Damianos did not linger on that thought.

Laurent was there. In suffocating black lace, he looked like a mourner from Patras, but far more tightly corseted. His eyes were on Auguste’s face, who was not looking back at him but straight ahead, at Damianos.

The sun was a thin white line in the sky, widening.

“King Damianos,” Auguste said. He lacked all the warmth he’d ever possessed, and spoke with the formality one would grant a stranger. “I have decided to accept your offer.”

Damianos looked at Laurent. “My offer?”

“As we discussed,” Auguste said, almost casually, “you have my blessing to court my brother, in exchange for the land and resources you promised me in good faith.”

Laurent’s face turned the color of cherries, maybe even darker. The blush that took up his face wasn’t beautiful, and soon Damianos found himself looking away. It wasn’t shyness but shame that colored him.

“Is that what your brother wants?”

“Does it matter?” Auguste put his hand on the back of Laurent’s neck and herded him forward and towards Damianos. Laurent went as willingly as one could expect from him. “But to answer your sensitive question, yes, I believe it is.”

Laurent grabbed his hand and held on. Whether it was out of free will or obligation, Damianos did not know, but he made sure to hold it back.

“I have been away from Akielos for too long,” Damianos said. “I don’t think the Kyroi would forgive me if I extended my stay here.”

“Then I suppose the courtship will go on unsupervised. I have a kingdom to rule, too.”

Laurent said, “Auguste.”

Auguste looked at the two of them for a moment. He pushed the hair away from his eyes, which gave Damianos a perfect view of his silver ring. At last, he smiled. Damianos would have preferred he didn’t, for it was an awful grin, bitter and angry.

“Stay for the executions,” Auguste said. He watched Damianos struggle to come up with an excuse. “Oh, I insist, King Damianos. It’ll be a wonderful spectacle.” His eyes flickered to Laurent. “I’ll visit you in the spring, brother.”

Damianos watched him go, the guards closing tightly around him like a moving and breathing armor.

Laurent was shoving him the moment Auguste was far enough. “You idiot,” he said, light fists connecting with Damianos’s chest. “You just gave him half of Sicyon.”

All Damianos could think of was Nikandros’ face. Suddenly, he did not wish to return home. “What was I supposed to do? Leave you with him?”

Something flickered in Laurent’s face. He quickly extinguished it.

“He asked you, didn’t he? Which one of us you preferred?”

“No.”

Damianos tried to keep his happiness from showing. “He did. And you did not choose him.”

“I did not choose you either,” Laurent said sharply. “He probably thought you’d refuse. ‘Land and resources’ could mean anything, you brute. What if he had asked for—”

“An army?”

“You don’t have an army to lend.”

Damianos tilted his head back to stare at the sky. Morning had come, which should have felt reassuring, the dark receding and giving way to the sunlight. But Damianos’s stomach was heavy inside his body.

“Where are the executions taking place?”

“The courtyard,” Laurent said. “He said it’d be a shame to let the stage go to waste.”

Damianos knew dismissing Auguste’s invitation would not be acceptable, especially not now that they were treating each other as distant acquaintances.

“All right,” he was forced to say. “I’ll ask Pallas to wait for us close by, so we can leave as soon as it’s over.” Was that insensitive? Laurent did not look hurt. Awkwardly, Damianos added, “If you wish to say goodbye—”

“There’s no need.”

Damianos did not push it. He did not ask Laurent about Auguste’s new wife, or what had brought on his decision to send Laurent away. None of that seemed important, and once again silence was more comfortable, easier.

The sky kept changing above them. This time, unlike yesterday, Damianos did not despise it for it.

*

The perfect order of the executions proved to Damianos what he’d already guessed to be true: there’d be more deaths after that day. There’d be so many, he guessed, that a system had been invented to reduce chaos and force compliance. And this was just the first show of the season.

Auguste’s guards brought six men and women onto the wooden platform each time a bell chimed. There were not enough executioners for the task at hand, and so only one man walked the line of kneeling people, slicing throats and cutting heads.

It was not the bloodbath Damianos had imagined, for the horror of it all was diminished by the fact that the prisoners wore linen bags over their heads. They were reused time and time again, until they turned from a dark brown color to pure black, blood clinging to the cloth insistently.

The present day offered Damianos and Laurent no luxuries. They had been forced to stand at the front line instead of hiding behind a column, which meant they had a privileged view of it all.

Laurent, standing next to Damianos in the crowd, was silent throughout the whole ordeal. If he recognized Paschal’s kneeling body, he gave no signs of it. Nor did he flinch when the sword was brought down.

Damianos wondered if he’d known Paschal would be there beforehand. The thought disturbed him, and so he kept it away.

At last, only three men were brought on the stage instead of the groups of six the public had been enduring each time. With the unconcealed joy of unwrapping a present, Auguste made his way to them and, one by one, plucked the bags from their heads.

Lord Touars was the first one to die. Then followed Lord Rolant.

The man kneeling between them was unrecognizable, except for his blue eyes. Auguste stood behind him, a hand fisted in the man’s hair to keep him steady and force him to look ahead.

Damianos turned to Laurent, and knew without asking that they were looking at each other. Laurent’s face did not change, but he did look away at the last second, blue eyes darting down to the ground before him.

The sound of the head hitting the wood never came, for Auguste was holding it in his hand, as one might flaunt a prize at a tournament. It continued to drip blood, even as he threw it into the pile of carcasses by the stage. Just another thing to be burned.

Laurent’s hand sneaked into his, ice-cold. When he tugged at it, Damianos followed.

*

They entered the forest through a path they knew was unknown to Pallas. It was wilder than any other passage they had ever crossed, the soil so slippery and treacherous it was a wonder they did not fall at least once. Branches and leaves scratched at Damianos’s bare arms as he walked, letting Laurent lead the way.

Damianos continued to stare at him—his blonde braid softly swinging as he walked, his pale hand in Damianos’s, his neck hidden away in dark lace—but he kept the flood of questions contained. There’d be time, he slowly realized. There’d be days and weeks and months. If they were lucky, there’d be years.

Before they broke through the last barrier of trees, Laurent turned to look at him. As it often happened when they were together, everything else fell silent. The stream was so close Damianos could smell the fresh water, yet he couldn’t hear it.

Laurent squeezed his hand once, tight enough that Damianos’s knuckles ached afterward.

Damianos smiled. Unsurprisingly, this was better than his dream had been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: negative and ignorant comments about suicide (very brief), minor characters' deaths both graphic and off-screen, public displays of violence, mentions of blood and torture, violence against women (implied non-con/rape), dubious consent in the form of arranged marriage, threats of violence, blood, blood... and blood.
> 
> Hello dearies! It's been over a month. I'm terribly, terribly sorry but my finals were killing me and I had no time to write. I am behind on answering comments, so if I haven't replied to you yet, do not take personal offense. I'm not ignoring anyone, and now that I'm free (fuck you, uni!) I get to finally reply in a way you deserve. 
> 
> Before I say anything else, I want to tell you that I forgot 2 very important things regarding credit to other people.  
> 1\. I read [Étude](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7746652) and as you all know Auguste's girlfriend in that fic is called Victoria. My brain decided to get about this until literally 2 weeks ago. So all credit for Victoire's name goes to Mariana, the author of that fic. Sorry for stealing your OC's name.
> 
> 2\. The part of last chapter's conversation between Laurent and Auguste where Auguste says "I could be a farmer" did not come from my head. It came from my friend [Kass](https://ancelegance.tumblr.com), who was very kind about it and didn't call me a thief or threaten to sue me. Still, it was her idea. 
> 
> I got a lot of really sweet messages and gifts for my birthday last week, and so I wanted to share two of them with you:
> 
> \- Kass drew [this amazing piece in honor of our unhinged king of Vere.](https://ancelegance.tumblr.com/post/635524716178915328/in-honor-of-the-birthday-of-the-very-kind-and-dear) To be fair, she had no idea he would snap this hard, but I have a feeling she still loves him. (Hopefully).
> 
> \- Sophia drew [this which has nothing to do with WTSIOA but I like to think of it as Aimeric](https://azanatha.tumblr.com/post/635504793365921792/something-i-drew-for-thickenmyblood-s-birthday) in heaven, picking cute flowers and not worrying about the mess that is Vere.
> 
> The next chapter will be up before the year ends. I'm probably guessing it'll be... after Christmas. Let's pray.
> 
> <3 Hope you're all well.


	27. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please check the warnings at the end before reading this chapter.

**Epilogue**

The sea was different. 

Laurent had often dreamed of it in Arles, falling asleep while trying to remember its roar, its fury. In those dreams, the water has been as cold as ice, so cold that sometimes Laurent would wake up, startled, after dipping his toes into it. Even the sand, now painfully hot under his feet, felt new. It wasn’t as pale or as gritty. It wasn’t as damp.

There were half-buried shells everywhere. The waves would come and go, and every time they retreated Laurent would find a new poorly-concealed gift in the sand: pink shells, cracked shells, fragments so white they looked like chipped bones. 

From where he was standing, Laurent could see the docks. He’d dreamed of those as well, of the smell of wet wood and freshly-caught fish, of high-pitched laughter swallowed by the crashing of waves. They looked smaller now than they had back in his head, decrepitly so. There were no children there that Laurent could see. 

“Your Highness,” Aktis said. He was holding Laurent’s riding boots, which were dripping water onto the sand. The sea had tried to take them, and Laurent had not moved to stop it. “Shall I—”

“No,” Laurent said. 

Aktis closed his mouth, lowered the boots to the sand, and retreated to where Pallas stood. Out of the two of them, Laurent liked Aktis better. He had joined them in Delfeur, as Nikandros had promised Damianos a small party of loyal men who would escort them to the capital, and he was quiet in a way Pallas was not. Pallas had been to Vere, he’d seen too much. 

Standing under the sun was beginning to hurt. Laurent’s feet already ached from the riding and the walking and the hot sand and the saltwater that licked at his blisters with vicious interest. His scalp was warm, and so was his face. If he did not move soon, he’d turn pink and then red, and his skin would turn brittle and peel off. 

Before the sea could try to claim his boots again, Laurent stepped into them. There was sand in them, between his toes and under his heel. He liked the way it felt, rubbing him raw.

Without a word, Laurent started walking towards the palace. It was the only thing that didn’t seem to have changed, from a distance. Pearly white like a perfect house made of marble, it stood tall and righteous, watching everything.

Aktis and Pallas followed. They made sure to stay a few steps behind and retreated further when Damianos emerged from the shade of an olive tree, right at the edge of the sand-path. He had a glow to him that had nothing to do with the crown he was wearing. Being in Akielos suited him, Laurent decided. Like this, he was almost beautiful.

“I thought I’d told you not to wait for me,” Laurent said. 

Damianos offered a smile. It looked helpless. “I wanted us to arrive together. Did you like the beach?”

_ Will you gift it to me if I say yes?  _ “It’s too warm here.”

In Akielon, Damianos said, “Summer is about to begin. The heat will only get worse from now on.”

It was a test, of sorts. Laurent’s Akielon wasn’t as rusty as it’d been when he’d left Arles for the trial, but speaking in Damianos’ language felt like giving in to something bigger. Laurent already felt the pressure of their courtship like a rope to the neck, ever-tightening. And it wasn’t as though anyone could intervene. That was also part of the punishment.

“I’ll keep to the shade then,” Laurent said in Veretian, and the invisible rope against his throat loosened up a fraction. 

Damianos walked by his side the rest of the way. They were both quiet, but Laurent knew it was his lack of words that tied Damianos to silence. If Laurent were to open his mouth and say something, even the most mundane thing, then Damianos would reply eagerly. 

During their journey from Barbin to Ios, Damianos had approached him several times. The themes he came up with were varied and sometimes interesting—the breeding of horses in Delfeur, the weather as they drew nearer to the Akielon border, the garments of clothing people near Mellos wore—but Laurent’s responses had been brief, a curt nod of his head or a word of agreement. 

Such replies would have discouraged a wiser man. Damianos, however, remained immune to Laurent’s indifference.

The palace grew bigger with every step they took. Some details were different, almost opposite to the memories Laurent had of the place. More trees had been planted along the road: pears and oranges and figs.

Damianos must have sent word out of their arrival; a small party of Akielons was gathered at the entrance, waiting for them. 

_ Waiting for Damianos _ , Laurent corrected himself. What did he matter, an exiled prince from a foreign nation, worth only half a province, in the presence of the King of Akielos?

Most of the men were strangers to Laurent. Nikandros he recognized instantly, braids shorter than they’d been at the palace in Arles, his face somehow sterner. Next to him, in a dark chiton, stood a bearded man almost as broad as Damianos, but not quite as tall. He reminded Laurent of Theomedes, although Laurent doubted there was anything royal about him. His posture was not quite right.

The man welcomed them. He exchanged a few stiff words with Damianos for the sake of tradition, and then his face broke sagged, relaxing. By his side, Nikandros remained serious and silent.

“Laurent,” Damianos said. “This is Makedon. He’s been looking after the capital’s affairs with Nikandros while I’ve been gone.”

Makedon didn’t seem able to hide his dislike nearly as well as Nikandros. He looked at Laurent without really seeing him, nodded once, and then returned his gaze to his king. 

_ With your army in my brother’s hands _ , Laurent thought,  _ none of this would have happened _ . 

Jokaste drew Laurent’s eye like a beacon. She wore her hair down, unbraided and unadorned. Her dress was the same color as the ocean Laurent had been watching earlier. Blonde and tall, she stood out from the graceless crowd of men around her. She was more beautiful than Laurent remembered her being.

“We welcome you to Akielos,” Jokaste said. Her voice was neither cold nor friendly, but rather something else entirely. 

Damianos crouched down in front of her. His knees had barely bent before he was standing again, holding—

“‘salted,” the child said, and laughed when Damianos pulled a face at him. Quickly, he grew serious again, or as serious as a child his age could be. “In honor—”

“I see your mother has been teaching you new words.”

Jokaste smiled, something hungry in her grin. “Let him finish, at least. He’s been practicing.”

Damianos turned away from her and held the child closer, the way no highborn parent ever would have in Vere, least of all the king.

Lower now than before, the child continued. “In honor and glory…” He squirmed in Damianos’ arms, distressed. He looked back at Jokaste, who offered him no sympathy or guidance. “We welcome—welcome—”

“Thank you,” Damianos said, and Laurent knew he meant it. His voice was disgustingly sweet. 

The child frowned. His brows were not as dark as Kastor’s had been, but he had the same brown eyes, wider and more expressive. “Not done,” he said. 

Laurent looked away from the two of them. This was exactly what he’d been trying to avoid by making Damianos come here first, alone. But when had Laurent succeeded in anything he’d ever planned? 

“It’s all right,” Damianos said. “I feel welcomed.”

Nikandros’ eye twitched. Apparently, it wasn’t only in Vere that children were not supposed to be hoisted up and held like this by monarchs. Laurent found it very amusing.

Damianos didn’t seem to care. He nodded along to what the child was mumbling, a hurried traditional speech to welcome the kings from wars. He didn’t complain when his nephew started playing with the lion pin on his chiton. 

“This is Prince Laurent,” Damianos said. “He will be staying at the palace with us. You should tell him your name, so he knows who you are.”

The child peered at Laurent. Then frowned. “Prince?”

“Of Vere,” Damianos said. “You’re the Prince of Akielos.”

A petty thought came to Laurent then.  _ He’s not even a prince. He’s a bastard’s son.  _ A quick glance at Nikandros’ face confirmed to Laurent that he wasn’t the only one with reservations on the matter. Nikandros looked like a man in pain.

“Galen,” the child said without looking at Laurent. He still seemed upset by the fact that he was not the only prince around.

Laurent had never liked children. Sometimes he doubted he’d liked Nicaise. He said nothing back, staring at Galen’s little fists curled around Damianos’ chiton.

“There’s a feast,” Nikandros said, impassive, “to welcome you both.”

It was unlikely the feast had anything to do with Laurent. There was no one to impress in Vere, no strict father who’d be upset at the treatment his son was receiving abroad. Having been raised in the palace, Laurent knew it was only a common courtesy, but that it had to be paid back. He had to attend.

Except he did not want to.

“I’m fasting,” Laurent said to no one in particular. His Veretian surprised Galen, whose eyes widened slightly. “I’d rather see my rooms.”

Damianos lowered Galen to the ground so he could stand on his own. The child didn’t move away, holding onto Damianos by the straps of his sandals. 

“As you wish,” Damianos said, and made a gesture to the guards at their backs. At the flick of his wrist, the whole party shifted, started moving, and soon they were all walking inside in a neat line.

Laurent refused to feel ungrateful about any of it.

*

Aktis and Pallas walked Laurent to his rooms. He knew the way, up the marble stairs and to the left, the same path he’d walked as a child every morning for months. Damianos had had his old rooms prepared for him, although Laurent did not quite understand why. Damianos could have whatever he wanted now without pretense. 

It’d be easy to command Laurent to his rooms, call them theirs. It would hardly be an offense, for what pride did Laurent have left? 

The furniture was new. Even the bed, which had been in perfect shape the last time Laurent slept in it, had been replaced. This one was bigger, four posts of sturdy-looking wood at each corner, sheets the color of sand. The table and chairs Laurent had often had breakfast in were gone as well. 

Laurent tried not to feel disappointed by it all. A chair was simply a chair. What did it matter if Auguste had once sat on it? What did it matter that the table they had eaten together at was no longer in this room? It was high time Laurent stopped looking for people in things.

Only the desk remained. It was small but perfectly organized. A stack of papers, an inkpot, a white and fluffy quill. Laurent ignored it all as he walked closer, eyes on the books someone had left for him there. There were four of them, but only one stood out to him.

He grabbed it without thinking. It had seemed so much bigger four years ago, whereas now it fitted comfortably in his hands. It wasn’t too heavy either, despite the fact that the covers were thick and sturdy, and when Laurent opened it the spine didn’t crack or whine. The drawing of the raging sea trying to swallow a whole ship made his stomach drop inside his body. 

Swallowing hard, Laurent put the book back on the pile. 

He took his time undressing. When he pulled his boots off, a tiny mountain of sand formed on the white floor, barely a few shades darker than the tiles. His soles felt good against the cold marble and so he didn’t move for a long time, sitting on the edge of the bed with his feet firmly planted on the floor. 

Before discarding his jacket, Laurent carefully pulled out the stack of letters from the inner breast pocket and did his best to smooth out any creases. Once he was satisfied with the result, Laurent put them under his new pillow. 

He usually treated himself to one or two after dinner. He had read them by eye-watering candlelight in Mellos, at the inn they had all stayed in to give their horses a break. In Kesus, he’d hidden from everyone for an hour, reading on a field where the grass was so high it disguised him completely. 

And when he couldn’t read them—there were too many people around, too much noise, his eyes couldn’t stay open—the knowledge that he had them with him was enough to pull him through the day or the night or the week. Sometimes he even imagined he could feel their warmth through the layers of his clothes.

Laurent lay down on top of the covers, feet still touching the marble. The ceiling was as white and perfect as it had always been. He stared at it, blinking lazily, dozing off, and thought of writing back.

*

Damianos came to him the next morning. He knocked twice on Laurent’s door and waited outside until Laurent moved from the bed to let him in. The sound of his knocking carried, filling the room, two precise blows. Laurent had spent so many hours in silence it startled him more than he was willing to admit.

Damianos’ clothes were different here from what he’d worn those last weeks in Vere. He was wearing a chiton similar to the one Laurent had seen on him at Auguste’s feast. The heat was probably the reason why the cloak was missing, but his chiton was adorned enough that he needed neither jewelry nor a crown to set him apart from other Akielons. Sandals the color of cedar, their straps almost reaching his knees, and the finest golden pin Laurent had seen on him at his shoulder were his only accessories.

“Eat breakfast with me today.”

Laurent forced himself to look away from Damianos’ chiton and meet his eyes. He said, “Isn’t it late for breakfast?”

“Well,” Damianos said, smiling. “You haven’t eaten yet and I… There’s a surprise for you.”

“It won’t be a surprise now that you’ve warned me.”

Aktis and Pallas were standing at each side of the door. They were listening, but Laurent doubted Aktis could understand much. He didn’t speak Veretian. Pallas on the other hand… Laurent thought he saw him bite his lip. 

“You don’t know what it is,” Damianos said. He peeked into the room, over Laurent’s head. “Did you get enough rest?”

Laurent stepped into the hallway, letting the door slam shut behind him. A bit dryly, he said, “Plenty.”

They started walking. Aktis and Pallas stayed behind, and Damianos did not command them to follow. 

The decorations in the halls Laurent barely remembered. He thought some of the vases were new, the figures painted on them different, but he could not be sure. He doubted Damianos cared for such things, and so Laurent didn’t ask.

“What were you doing before I interrupted?”

Laurent put his hand on the stone banister, caressing it as they walked down the steps. It was cold and gave him something to focus on. He was already regretting not accepting Damianos’ offers of having his measurements taken and a chiton tailored.

“Reading,” Laurent said. 

“And your rooms?” Damianos said next, avoiding the topic of books and letters. It seemed Laurent wasn’t the only one reluctant to talk about Auguste. “Do you like them?”

“They’re fine. I’ve slept there before.”

“I know.”

Laurent held tighter onto the banister. “More shade would be nice.”

“Oh,” Damianos said. His hand was warm where it brushed against Laurent’s elbow. Too warm. “Of course. I’ll have it fixed by tonight.”

“You’ll have your slaves fix it, you mean.”

Damianos froze mid-step. His mouth, Laurent saw when he turned to look at Damianos, was a thin line. But Laurent did not worry; it didn’t look as tight as other times they’d argued. His reply was interrupted by the fact that they had finally completed their descent.

Laurent started to walk towards the main hall, where Theomedes had had every meal, but Damianos stopped him with a hand on Laurent’s elbow. 

“It’s the other way,” Damianos said. “I thought it’d be nicer in the gardens.”

“Since when do you have gardens in the palace?”

Damianos did not answer. Their footsteps echoed, bouncing around the hall, off the walls, until they reached the eastern entrance. Guards whose names Laurent didn’t know where there, two at each side, and they would not meet Damianos’ gaze as they let him and Laurent through.

The gardens were smaller than the ones in Arles, which meant they were twice as small as the ones in Barbin. Laurent stopped the thought from blossoming and spreading. He did not dare think of it when the sun was out.

The space used to be all marble, with benches of hard stone to lounge uncomfortably on. Now the columns had been decorated with green ivy and flowers, every inch of white decorated with life. Damianos stepped closer to the main flowerbed, which was all purple and white. When the wind came, the flowers swayed and rattled, and then grew quiet and still once more.

They were orchids.

“Is this the surprise?” Laurent managed to say. His throat felt clogged. “Another courtship gift. If I refuse you, will you have it torn down?”

Damianos didn’t look upset. He obviously had not been expecting gratitude. “This isn’t a courtship gift. I had this built right after my coronation.”

“Then why—”

Something moved behind a column. It was barely a flash of movement, a hand darting out of its hiding spot, but it was enough to make Laurent stop breathing. On the edge of hysteria, he thought:  _ It’s happening again _ .

The air didn’t smell of lavender oil. The hand Laurent had seen wasn’t milky white and small. When the wind came, the camisole Laurent had been expecting to see never appeared. Disappointment washed over him in waves, and when it had finally passed there were only the licked-clean bones of grief left.

Damianos said, “Come here, Dion.”

Dion stepped out into the sun and away from the column. All this time, Laurent had been imagining his eyes a different shade of green. They were like moss and olives combined.

In slow, accented Veretian, Dion said, “Your Highness.”

Laurent took a step towards him. He was so much taller than he’d been four years ago, his legs and arms no longer wiry and fit for running fast on the sand. Laurent’s hand moved on its own for a second, reaching out to touch the necklace of brown shells Dion was wearing around his neck, and then stopped. Laurent lowered his hand awkwardly.

“I’m glad,” Dion said, struggling with the words, “that you’ve returned.”

Damianos had stayed behind. He was lounging close to the door that led back into the palace, watching them with his arms crossed over his chest. His face was very calm.

“Your Veretian isn’t as terrible as you’ve been claiming all these years,” Laurent said.

Dion smiled. He did not sound ashamed when he replied, “No. It’s even worse than I made you believe.” A frown interrupted his happy expression. He’d spoken the words in Akielon, and now tried again in Veretian: “It’s worse—”

“It can’t be worse than Nikandros’.”

“He’s gotten better,” Dion said. “Aeneas is still the worst of us all though. He keeps confusing fish with fist. It’s led to some uncomfortable—” He cut himself off. Now he did look ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

Laurent ignored Damianos’ eyes on his back. “For speaking your language in your own country? Don’t be ridiculous.”

Dion laughed. Whatever tension he’d been carrying disappeared from his shoulders, a slight slouch replacing it. He tilted his head to the side, the way he always had as a child when Laurent said something stupid.

“I have no idea what that word means,” Dion said. “I hope it wasn’t an insult.”

“Ridiculous?” 

Dion tried to say it, but his tongue got in the way. He laughed harder at that.

“It means preposterous,” Laurent said.

Politely, Dion said, “Of course.”

“You don’t know what that means either, do you?”

“Interesting?” Dion said, sounding hopeful. At Laurent’s expression, he tried again. “Funny. Painful?”

“None of those options make any sense,” Laurent said. His hand was closer to Dion’s than it’d been before. When had he moved it? When had he stepped closer? “Tell me more about Aeneas. Why isn’t he here?”

“He’s hammering away at some shield. I tried to convince him to come with me today, but he said there was no rush.” Dion lowered his voice a bit in a poor attempt at whispering, something he still was terrible at. “I believe he’s intimidated.”

“By me?”

“By the king. Aeneas has never met him. Or been inside the palace.”

Laurent felt the corners of his mouth twitching, itching to turn upwards and into a smile. He turned away from Dion, a snarky remark dying on his tongue when he found that Damianos was no longer standing by the door. He was gone.

Out of the corner of his eye, Laurent saw Dion fidgeting. Dion had edged closer to one of the stone benches facing the flowerbed but was waiting for Laurent to sit first.  _ Or to order him to sit _ , Laurent thought.

They weren’t children anymore. Laurent couldn’t simply take him by the hand and lead him back to his room. Damianos had left them alone, but that didn’t mean Laurent was allowed to take liberties. 

As he sat down, Laurent made a point of not looking at the orchids. It was easier that way.

“Did you like my gift?”

“Yes,” Laurent said, touching his own neck. The shirt he was wearing was tight around his throat, hiding everything from view. “I forgot to take it with me when I left Arles, but it was—” He didn’t know what to say about it, didn’t know how to explain what it had felt like to get a present that didn’t come from Auguste. “I never sent you any presents.”

Dion gave him an amused look.  _ So? _

“I could have,” Laurent went on. His shame was suffocatingly hot. “I should have—”

“You did enough.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“I can read and write because of you,” Dion said. “My family is richer because of it. Everyone in the village comes to me for letters and sometimes even lessons. Isn’t that enough?”

Laurent didn’t reply. 

“For my last birthday, Aeneas got me a fishing net.”

“I thought you liked fishing.”

“I do,” Dion said. He rolled his eyes but did not look truly annoyed. “The net ripped when I was hauling it back home. There were fish everywhere, all over the road.” Shifting on the bench, he added, “When I told Aeneas what had happened the next day, he said to me, ‘But why did you take it with you to the sea? It was a decorative net.’”

Laurent stared at him, tense. Was Dion making fun of him? “Why would anyone want a decorative net?”

“That’s what I told him.”

“Is that story supposed to make me feel better?”

“I don’t know,” Dion said. “Did it?”

It didn’t. Laurent knew why he’d done the things he had, and getting praised for them only made him sicker. He’d wanted an equal and so he’d carved one out of a peasant with lessons and feasts. It was selfishness that had driven him then, and it was selfishness that made him keep quiet about it now.

Around them, the small garden shrunk. It was an intimate place, a flourishing nook in a wide expanse of white rock. Laurent could not think of a more different garden from the one he’d known in Arles. 

Back at the palace in Arles, the gardens were wide enough to hold trees inside of them. Pets liked to service people there, sometimes hidden away by the bushes, sometimes without pretense if it was dark enough. 

The silence here felt like an absence of something. Laurent missed the sound of running water, the rhythm of drops on stone. Every other garden he’d ever known had had a fountain.

Laurent stood, his knees creaking like old wood as he did. He was opening his mouth when Dion interrupted him.

“Was the journey here pleasant?”

“It was long,” Laurent said. Weeks on a horse, sleeping on hard beds, hearing only Akielon around him—he didn’t know how to explain those things to Dion. “Have you ever left the capital?”

“Yes, I—oh.”

“What is it?”

Dion gave a sheepish smile, one that Laurent remembered from their days together. He used to smile like that after throwing a bad dice. “I guess the sea doesn’t count as a place.” Then, more eagerly, “Have you been to the beach already?”

Taken by surprise, Laurent simply said, “Yes.”

“Oh.” Dion frowned, but it only lasted for a second. He was on his feet in the blink of an eye, smiling again. “But you didn’t see the nests, did you?”

“Nests?”

“We could go now,” Dion said. “It’s early, which means it’s not too warm for you, and we’ll be back before it’s time for lunch. Would you—”

“Yes.”

Dion smiled.

*

The nightmares started on Laurent’s second night in Ios. 

With all the riding he’d done from Barbin to the capital, Laurent would often only have enough energy to read one of Auguste’s letters—he’d make it to the second paragraph and start over, willing himself to memorize some bits—before sleep came for him and dragged him under. 

The first night at the palace, Laurent had been bone-tired, aching all over, and he’d fallen unconscious minutes after sneaking Auguste’s letters under his pillow. But he should have known it wouldn’t always be like that, that as soon as he stopped running everything he’d tried to leave behind would reach him. 

He should have known the dreams would start again, as they had when he’d made it to Arles after his winter in Akielos. Back then he’d dreamt of Kastor’s execution: Kastor’s head hitting the ground, the blood soaking it all, the body falling, always falling, the blinding sun above that burned and made it all hurt. 

These were real dreams. Laurent knew he was dreaming, closed-eyed, asleep, in his bed. And yet that didn’t comfort him, for these dreams were made of memories too. 

The second night, he dreamt that he was in the fountain—although which fountain it was Laurent could not tell—and he was holding a squirming Aimeric under the water. The boy struggled and kicked and scratched, and it was only when Laurent let him go that he realized the boy wasn’t Aimeric. It was Nicaise.

The third night he dreamt of Govart. It was almost a perfect memory—the slide of Damianos’ dagger against Govart’s throat, the thrashing around, the feeling of victory—except that the blood on Laurent’s hands turned scaldingly hot and blistered his fingers, corroding his joints down to the bones.

But the worst dream was of Auguste. He’d had such dreams before the trial, of standing over his brother’s body holding a sword, of giving him the poisoned cup of wine without knowing what was in it until it was too late. And yet this version was worse than anything Laurent’s mind could have come up with, for it wasn’t irrational or feverish. It had already happened. 

Laurent, bow in hand, watching Auguste bleed out from that wound on his side. Again and again and again.

Laurent was still trying to shake off the invisible grime that clung to him after his dream—the fountain water was red, Aimeric’s fist closed around sharp glass—when there was a knock on his door. Pallas and Aktis had not disturbed him once since he’d arrived. They never spoke to him outside of what was necessary, and sometimes even then they would find ways to avoid speaking. 

And so that only left one other person.

“Are you sick?” Damianos said as soon as Laurent opened the door and let him in. “You look—”

“I’m fine.”

Damianos closed the door behind him. Then, slowly, he walked up to Laurent and pressed the back of his hand to Laurent’s forehead. Despite being sweaty and in his bedclothes, Laurent didn’t push him away. Damianos’ skin was soft and cool, for a change. His hand felt good where it was.

Laurent sat down on the bed. “Why are you here?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Damianos said, focused. “That can wait. How long have you been feeling unwell?”

“I’m not unwell.”

“Laurent.”

“Damianos.”

Damianos joined him on the bed. His chiton rode up as he sat down, and Laurent found himself staring at his naked thigh as he’d done once, weeks ago, in a tent in Barbin. It wasn’t long before Laurent looked away, his neck prickling with shame.

“It’s dark in here,” Damianos said after a while.

Laurent gestured to the thick, blue drapes the palace slaves had fixed over his windows. He didn’t want to talk. His mouth was dry, his throat felt sand-filled.

Damianos rose from the bed without a word, but instead of heading towards the door as Laurent had expected him to, he walked to the windows and threw the curtains open. Instantly, the room filled with light and noise from outside. Birds and waves and sunshine. 

The sudden brightness hurt Laurent’s eyes. He blinked against it.

“I thought you’d be at the beach,” Damianos said, standing by the window. The sunlight made his profile ethereal. “The weather is nice, something you should take advantage of while you can. It will only get warmer from now on.” He turned to face Laurent. “Being cooped up like this can’t be good for you.”

Laurent sneaked a hand under his pillow, his pinky brushing against the corner of one of the letters. “What do you suggest I do, then? Shall I busy myself with wedding preparations?”

“What would you like to do?”

The room felt hotter. Laurent ached to tell Damianos to close the drapes once more, to let the cooling shade cover it all, but he stopped himself. He’d spent the whole morning in bed, tossing and turning, trying to get rid of the dread that filled him as soon as he returned to consciousness. The light hurt his eyes and the heat made him sweat, and Laurent liked the discomfort of it.

The silence went on. At some point, Damianos came back to the bed and sat down next to Laurent, careful to keep his distance. Ever since they’d left Vere, Damianos had stayed away. Perhaps he was waiting for Laurent to beg and crawl.

Now, sitting this close to Damianos, Laurent thought of begging. 

“I have a few meetings today,” Damianos said quietly. “But tomorrow we could go riding. Or sailing. I don’t know if Dion has told you this already, but soon there’ll be a festival in the village.”

“Apple picking. He mentioned it.”

Damianos spread his legs. His naked knee touched Laurent’s clothed one. “We could attend it. There are games and prizes. There’s dancing. I think you’d like it.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“It’s been years since I took part in it. Maybe things have changed.”

Laurent let go of the letters, clasping his hands on his lap instead. He said, “Kings have no time for games.”

“Me being the King has nothing to do with it,” Damianos said. He didn’t sound irritated, but there was an edge to his voice that had not been there before. He glanced at Laurent’s face before adding, “Kastor and I used to go every year until I turned twelve. We were supposed to attend the year of my thirteenth birthday, but I was…”

Jokaste came to mind. “Distracted?”

“Recovering.”

Laurent was quiet for a moment. “And after?”

“Kastor refused to go, saying it was childish to still attend those sorts of things when he was already leading armies and so close to becoming an official member of my father’s Council.” Damianos smiled. It looked mocking. “Of course, I agreed with him. I was too old for apple picking anyway.”

“But now you aren’t. Too old, I mean.”

Damianos tilted his head to the side. His brown eyes were on Laurent’s hands. “Now there’s Galen. He’s not old enough to participate in any of the games, but neither was I when I started going.”

“As if Jokaste would allow it,” Laurent said, more dryly than he had intended to. “It doesn’t sound like the sort of thing a future king should do. Mingling with—”

Damianos’ reply was sharp. “He’s a child. Kastor would have taken him.”

The heat was disorienting.

“He wouldn’t have,” Laurent said. Was it cruel? He did not care. “Kastor thought himself above everyone, even you. He’d never approve of his child spending the day surrounded by peasants.”

Damianos stood. His chiton barely hid away his back, an expanse of bronze skin that stood out against the white cloth. With every breath he took, his muscles and bones shifted, and Laurent didn’t have it in him to look away anymore. In three long strides, Damianos had made it to the door.

“Perhaps it’s best that you stay in bed today.”

Laurent slowly lay down on the mattress as Damianos’ hand closed around the door handle. The ceiling was so white it hurt to look at, especially in that light, but Laurent preferred it to Damianos’ broad back. That sight hurt him more, in a way.

When the door slammed, Laurent did not flinch.

*

Long and very narrow, the table in the Council room was to Laurent the only piece of furniture in the whole palace that reminded him of Arles. His brother’s Council would gather around a similar table—brown, polished to perfection, with specks of red—and the seating arrangement never changed. The King was at the head, in the farthest corner from the door, and everyone else always knew what their place was. Lords, Councillors, merchants, traders. 

It was no different in Akielos. Damianos sat where kings must, and his chair was different from all the others in the room. It was bigger, taller, and had a set of arms the color of washed-out seashells.

Nikandros sat at his right hand. Jokaste at his left.

The guard that had stopped Laurent at the door was talking. Explaining, most likely, why Laurent had gotten into the room. It was easy to drown his voice out if Laurent focused on trying to read, from a distance, the papers scattered all over the table.

Makedon noticed his attempts and, without discretion, shifted to shield some documents with his body.

“He can stay,” Damianos said, “but I expect real intruders won’t be able to get inside as easily. Go now.”

The guard’s skin was darker than Damianos’ and yet his blush was so deep it showed on his cheeks. He retired with a bowed head.

“Exalted,” Makedon said. His eyes flickered to Laurent every few seconds. “I do not feel that this is the right—” He stopped talking. Damianos’ expression had soured considerably. After a moment, Makedon added, almost hesitantly, “These are Akielon affairs. He’s Veretian.”

There were plenty of empty chairs to choose from. Laurent sat down on the farthest corner, opposite to Damianos. Almost a meter separated him from the rest of the Council members.

Nikandros was yet to look up from the paper in his hands. He seemed reluctant to take part in the discussion.

“Prince Laurent is here as our guest,” Damianos said. “In Vere, his brother allowed me to join every meeting. This is me paying him the same respect he and his family paid me.”

Laurent watched Makedon’s face and could almost hear his thoughts from where he was sitting. Damianos was a king. Laurent, on the other hand, barely qualified as a prince these days. The difference between them was like the one between an abyss and a mountain. 

Auguste’s hospitality had come with a cost, in the end.

“Exalted, I—”

Damianos leaned back. “I won’t hear more on this subject, Makedon. If his presence offends you so, you are dismissed from today’s meeting.”

Laurent had not meant to come here. He’d been bored of wandering the halls and empty rooms, and the gardens Damianos had shown him a few days back were a place Laurent did not want to visit on his own. Orchids and sunlight were not Laurent’s favorite combination these days.

He could have stayed in his rooms, reading or writing or staring out the window. Except that was what he’d done all day, and the day before. At least in Arles, his guards had been fun to pester, but here Pallas and Aktis were stoic beyond reason. Whatever friendliness Pallas had had in him for Veretians had most likely evaporated after Lazar’s departure.

And so he’d come here, without thinking. The guards at the door had been easy enough to trick, but Laurent hadn’t expected Damianos to allow him to stay. If anything, Laurent had come here to shove and push and see how far he could take it. 

Talking about Kastor had gone unpunished. Perhaps this offense wouldn’t, for now they had an audience.

“The traders want an answer,” Jokaste said. Her hair was draped over one shoulder, unbraided. “It’s been almost a year since the last time. I believe they’re starting to fear the royal palace will host Patrans slaves.”

“And we need men to plow the fields up north,” Nikandros added. “Meniados of Sicyon has sent multiple letters while you were gone. He claims to need at least two hundred hands for the harvest.”

Damianos met Laurent’s gaze. Neither of them said a word, but they did not have to. Damianos had not told his Council of Auguste’s requests. Damianos did not want Laurent to say anything about it.

A bald man next to Jokaste said, “There’s also the matter of the bed slaves. Adastrus—”

“Adastrus can wait,” Damianos said in what Laurent had discovered was his kingly voice. He had never spoken like this in Vere. “Buy one hundred men from Cleon and send them to Sicyon.”

Laurent squirmed in his seat, waiting for the uproar of questions that would follow. Damianos had not explained himself or his reasons, and so surely Nikandros would speak up, would demand Adastrus, who Laurent did not know, be treated as importantly as Meniados. Pleasure slaves were what held Akielos together, Laurent thought bitterly.

But the questions stayed away. Nikandros handed Damianos a piece of parchment, showed him where to sign, and then the matter was settled. Not even Jokaste complained.

Slowly, Laurent realized this was how Council meetings should have been in Arles all along. 

They discussed upcoming formal events—where they’d the host, who’d attend, what the traditional gifts would be—and things of minor importance Laurent had never thought had a place in a room so full of important people. He kept quiet throughout the rest of the meeting, sensing that his opinions would not be welcome. And why would they, when he was a foreigner without any real experience in such matters? He’d never sat in his brother’s Council as anything but an intruder.

“You’re dismissed,” Damianos said. “We’ll gather again tomorrow to discuss Adastrus and the restorations.”

Laurent watched them all go, one by one. He watched them ignore him, as though he was nothing but a fly that was lousy at being annoying. Jokaste and Nikandros were the last ones to leave, but neither of them seemed interested in the fact that Laurent had not moved from his seat. Nikandros had been acting like Laurent was part of the decoration for days.

Once the room was truly empty except for the two of them, Damianos said, “I take it some rest did you good.”

“You haven’t told them.”

“About what?”

Laurent willed himself not to be annoyed. Sometimes Damianos wasn’t being a fool on purpose. “Sicyon. You haven’t told them of the deal you made with my brother.”

“We signed no contract.”

_ Unsupervised _ . The word slammed into Laurent, real as a kick or a punch or a lash. It took several seconds of breathing in deeply before he could think of speaking. “Sicyon has the best soil in Akielos, I studied that with Aesop when I was—” He cut himself off. Of course Damianos already knew the specifics. “Giving half of it up will weaken your economy and your relationship with that Kyros. With all the kyroi.”

Damianos frowned. “Is it a coup that worries you?”

“Auguste will be here in the spring,” Laurent said in an overly casual voice. There was nothing casual about this conversation; it was the first time he’d said Auguste’s name out loud in weeks. “He’s hoping that when he visits you’ll refuse to give him Sicyon.”

“Why would I refuse?”

Laurent stared at him. And stared and stared. “I just explained why it was a terrible idea, Damianos. Hand it over and the kyroi won’t respect you. Don’t hand it over and…”

“There’ll be war again between our countries? It won’t come to that.”

“How do you—”

“Half of Sicyon is Auguste’s,” Damianos said firmly. “Consider it a courtship gift. Do you think you’re worth less than that?”

Aesop’s voice boomed in Laurent’s skull, loud and clear and unaffected by the years that had passed. It wasn’t Absyrtus’ story that made something coil tightly in Laurent’s stomach. It was his sister’s.

“That won’t do me any favors,” Laurent said. “They’ll think my brother has sent me here to seduce you into submission. You heard Makedon. I’m—”

“You never cared about what people said of you in Vere.”

As the stupidity of the sentence sank in, Damianos lowered his gaze.

“No,” Laurent said, the word so dry it might as well have been dust. “They thought I was incestuous and depraved, but at least they did not accuse me of political corruption. I wasn’t a foreigner there.”

“I did not mean it like that.”

Silence spread and settled over them like dust on a still room. Laurent couldn’t stand it.

“What if the courtship falls through?”

Damianos took a deep breath. His shoulders moved with it, and for a second he looked too big to fit in his chair. “He’ll give it back if that happens.”

“You don’t know him at all, do you?”

“It’s because I know him that I’m saying this.”

Uncle had thought he knew Auguste. And now his head was buried somewhere, half-burned and rotting, eye sockets full of soil. Laurent had dreamt of him the night before: turning in bed to a body next to his, opening his eyes to a headless man touching his hair. 

A gentle hand on Laurent’s shoulder startled him.

“Will you walk with me?”

“To the gardens?” Laurent said. “I’d rather not.”

Damianos’ smile was small. “We could go to the beach. Or the stables.”

That caught Laurent’s attention. He tried, hard, not to let it show on his face. The last thing he wanted was Damianos thinking he could spoil Laurent into agreeing with him. That’d be inconvenient.

“I didn’t know the stables were a place for the royals to lounge in.”

“Well,” Damianos said. “There’s a lot of things you don’t know, then.”

Damianos offered him a hand, but Laurent stood up on his own.

They walked down the hall, past the entrance, and through the courtyard. Every man and woman that saw them, regardless of rank or position, made sure not to walk into them or look Damianos in the eyes. A young stable boy stammered his way through opening the doors and letting them inside. 

It was the closest to a fantasy Laurent had ever been. The air felt fresh against his skin, the shade divine. He stepped into the stables, dry hay crunching under his boots, and breathed.

Laurent tried to find the horse he’d ridden to get to Ios, but the animals in the stalls all looked the same. Damianos wasn’t helping either, too busy talking to the boy about his stallion and looking at Laurent when he thought Laurent was distracted. 

The air smelled like hay. Laurent had missed this—the cool shade, the distant neighing, the feeling that he was a world away from everyone else. It wasn’t an exact replica of the stables in Arles, but Laurent did not need it to be. Damianos didn’t know of all the late evenings and early mornings Laurent had spent as a child there, hiding from tutors and Mother, rolling around on the hay. Damianos didn’t know, and yet he’d gifted this moment to Laurent anyway.

Damianos walked up to him while Laurent was tracing the edges of one of the stall doors. He stopped at a prudent distance, close enough to touch Laurent if he wanted to, but not so close as to crowd him against the wood.

“I have a present for you,” Damianos said. For the first time since Laurent had met him, he sounded hesitant. Nervous. “When did you get your mare?”

There were no splinters here, the wood sanded and polished to perfect smoothness. Laurent could feel Damianos’ eyes on his neck, so he turned to face him. He was much closer than Laurent had expected.

“She was a birthday present from Auguste,” Laurent said. “I was fourteen.”

“Did you train her yourself?”

Laurent flushed. He didn’t quite understand where the conversation was headed. “Of course not. We had stable masters and boys who—why are you asking me this?”

Carefully, Damianos said, “I trained my first horse. It’s customary here for young boys, especially princes. I only wondered if you…”

“Will you have me train your nephew’s horse? Is that why we’re here?”

“Galen is too young to ride, and I would never—” Damianos cut himself off. He was looking at Laurent with a helpless expression on his face as though he couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. Then, like an exhale of air, “Are you miserable here?”

“Miserable.”

“You’ve barely left your rooms since we arrived. You won’t join me for any meals, or ask for anything. Are you truly so miserable here that any company upsets you?”

“I asked you for curtains,” Laurent said. He did not squirm under Damianos’ incredulous gaze. “And I joined you today at the meeting. I saw Dion.”

“Once. You saw Dion once, three days ago. And you haven’t gone back to the beach since then.”

Laurent felt too much like his thirteen-year-old self, being ordered to play under the docks. “If you wanted me to dine with you, you should have simply asked me to.”

“That’s not—I don’t want you to  _ do _ anything.”

“Then why are you pestering me with these questions?”

Damianos’s hand closed around his, pulling it away from the stall door. Laurent let it happen, his eyes never moving away from Damianos’ face. So what if this was the first time they’d touched, truly touched, since they’d left Vere? It wasn’t as though Laurent cared. It wasn’t as though he was counting days like a prisoner.

“I want you to do the things you enjoy,” Damianos said slowly. His fingers were warm against Laurent’s ice-cold knuckles. “When was the last time you went riding or practiced archery or even read a book?”

Laurent ignored the first two options. He’d spent weeks riding, his thighs burning by the time they’d reached Delfeur. He’d hurt Auguste the last time he’d touched a bow. “I read,” he said, and his voice was scratchy against the walls of his throat. “I’ve been reading.”

“You haven’t asked for a single new book.”

“Akielon gives me headaches.”

“There are books in Veretian here. Very few, but enough to keep you entertained for days.”

“What does any of that matter? If my lack of activities annoys you, I’ll make sure to read and eat more vigorously from now on.”

Damianos let go of his hand. “So you are miserable. Do you wish I’d left you in Vere with your brother?”

Laurent did not reply. It wasn’t a real question.

“I won’t force a courtship upon you. All this time, I thought you wanted…” Damianos’ face twisted. He continued reluctantly. “I’ve never faced rejection. I’m afraid to say I wouldn’t understand subtlety in refusal, so I am asking you to say the words clearly if that is how you feel about me.”

It had been easier in Vere. Laurent’s body had moved on its own, without needing command or explanations. It had sought out the warmth and latched onto it, even when Laurent knew the right thing would have been to pull away. Back then, Laurent had liked the cruelty of it all, against Auguste at times, but often against himself. 

Now, in Akielos, punishments did not have a place to exist. And yet Laurent still liked that same warmth, his body as hesitant as the sea. He wanted, he did not want. 

“I’m not miserable,” Laurent said, although it wasn’t true. He was miserable, but not because of the courtship. It suddenly seemed imperative Damianos understood that. “When we—in the forest.” Tersely. “I… liked it.”

Damianos gave him a long look, probably trying to decide if he believed Laurent or not. “I won’t send you back to Vere if you refuse me, Laurent. Tell me you know that.”

“I know.”

“And if you wish to call off the courtship,” Damianos went on, calmly, “I will not hold it against you. Or your brother. No retaliation will follow.”

“I know.”

They stood in silence. It was clear to Laurent that there was more Damianos wanted to say, but he was holding back the words. There was more Laurent wanted to say, too, but the stables were not the place to do it, and so he kept quiet.

After a while, Laurent said, “You mentioned a gift.”

Wordlessly, Damianos moved to hold his hand again and guided Laurent to the back of the wooden building, to the right. The last stall was closed and there was an  _ L  _ carved on its door, the sort of calligraphy Damianos could only ever dream of having.

Laurent was too short to take a look inside. Damianos smiled as he watched Laurent rise to his tiptoes. 

“You like mares better,” Damianos said with renewed shyness. He did not sound like himself. “But the Akielon tradition claims it’s bad luck to give a mare as a courtship gift. If you truly dislike him, I’ll—”

“I’d like to see him.”

Damianos pushed the door open, his eyes on Laurent’s face.

The horse was the same color his mare had been. Longer eyelashes, maybe. He was clean as if recently groomed, and Laurent spotted a single braid on his hair.

Laurent approached the animal slowly. He looked pliant, already broken into, but one could never be careful enough. The horse neighed softly when Laurent reached out to touch his ears, making Laurent pause. In the end, Laurent decided to stroke his back instead.

“How old is he?”

Damianos’ hands were awkwardly clasped in front of him, as though he did not know where to put them now that Laurent was out of reach. “Five,” he said. “He’s very docile, which… I know you like a challenge, but I wasn’t sure—”

“A challenge,” Laurent said slowly. Something like pleasure exploded inside him at the words. Without thinking, “I face enough challenges with you as a suitor.”

A smile bloomed on Damianos’ face.  _ Do you? _ it seemed to ask, playfully. “What will you name him?”

“Animals don’t need names. Does your horse have a title of his own? Lord Stallion of—”

Damianos flushed. “It’s a tradition here.”

“Is it?” Laurent was unexpectedly delighted. He liked the soft shame that came from Damianos, sweet and childish. “Did you name him after a great king?”

“No.”

“A poet, then.”

“I'm afraid I don't like poetry.”

Laurent tsked, running his hands across the horse’s back. “Nikandros?”

“What does Nikandros— _ no _ . Of course not. I wouldn’t name my horse after my—”

“It’d suit him,” Laurent said. “They’re both proud and standoffish. Nikandros more than the animal.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that.”

“It’s a compliment,” Laurent said. “If there was a competition, Nikandros would win it.”

Damianos moved closer. His chest brushed against Laurent’s back, movements slow and easy so as to not scare the animal. Or Laurent. 

“I made this one,” Damianos said, touching the braid. “I thought it was fitting.”

“Fitting of a beggar’s horse, perhaps.”

“Beggars don’t own horses.”

Laurent traced the braid with his index finger, then poked Damianos’ hand with it. “They should,” he said, and leaned back so that the back of his head touched Damianos’ shoulder. “In a prosperous nation, beggars—”

Damianos’ laughter filled the entire stall and leaked into the next. He didn’t stop, not even when Laurent tried to force him into re-braiding the plait. 

*

It did not take long for Laurent to meet the palace slaves. Once he started leaving his rooms often enough to see other people in the halls and the courtyard, Laurent became good at spotting the different kinds of slaves Damianos kept around. The difference, he learned, was mostly in the chitons they wore—the length, the color, the shoulder pins—but a smaller clue was their beauty. For Laurent, it was easy to tell when a young man had been hand-picked to serve on a bed instead of cleaning the stables.

Erasmus obviously belonged to the first group. 

Laurent had caught glimpses of him on several occasions. Once in the gardens, twice disappearing into the rooms some slaves slept in. Blonde, pretty, of questionable age. 

Now he was sulking under the shade of a big tree, right by the training arena. His knees were very, very pink, but the rest of him was unflushed and unblemished. Laurent found himself staring for a long time before finally approaching him.

“Stay,” Laurent said as he lowered himself to the ground. The small patch of grass was cool and slightly wet, but the clothes Laurent was wearing were dark enough to hide any stains. “What’s your name?”

“Erasmus,” the slave said. He’d already shifted so as to be sitting on his haunches, the closest thing to a kneeling position Laurent would allow. His blonde head was bowed. In hesitant Veretian, he added, “Your Highness.”

Damianos’ orders, most likely.

“You’re one of the King’s pleasure slaves.”

Erasmus seemed to tremble at the words. “This slave knows of your courtship and has not—”

“I’m not here to punish you,” Laurent said, “or send you away. Unless that’s what you want me to do.”

Slowly, Erasmus lifted his chin to steal a glance at Laurent’s face. He was even prettier up close. “Your Highness?”

Slaves had been a part of Akielos when Laurent had visited the first time. Back then, Laurent had known far too well what being a bed slave meant, what was required of them. He’d seen Theomedes’ favorites, and Kastor’s, and Damianos’. Pretty things eager to please and be praised. Four years ago, Erasmus must have been in training.

It meant little to Laurent whether or not Damianos had lain with his slaves since their return from Vere. In a way, it would have been a relief if Erasmus had told him he’d been solicited eagerly during these past few weeks. Whatever the slaves did in bed, Laurent wouldn’t have to do. And that thought only brought relief to him.

“Do you have a family that would take you back?”

Erasmus bowed again, a wilting flower. “No, Your Highness.”

“Are you on good terms with the other slaves?”

“I—yes, Your Highness.”

Laurent hesitated. He didn’t want to seem weak. “Any man you would call a friend?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Answer simply from now on.”

Erasmus risked another glance. It looked questioning.

“Yes or no,” Laurent said. “Is this friend of yours another bed slave?”

“Yes.”

“Is he Damianos’?”

“No,” Erasmus said. Then, at Laurent’s nod, he added, “He belongs to the Kyros of Ios.”

Laurent wanted to laugh. That was certainly an unexpected blessing. It’d certainly make things more amusing—he’d get to finally use his brain for something other than daydreaming. Nikandros would be upset with the outcome, a perfect encouragement.

“Are there any other…” Laurent paused, not knowing what the appropriate word was. He highly doubted something like friendship existed among slaves. It certainly didn’t amongst pets. “Any other men you trust?”

“No, Your—” A blush. “This slave is—”

“Bring him to my rooms tomorrow. When does he usually go to his master?”

“In the evenings, right after dinner.”

Laurent tsked. “Then bring him to me as soon as the meal is over. He won’t be in trouble.”

“Yes.”

Laurent stood after a while. The shade was cool and refreshing, but it was boring to sit around with nothing to do. He didn’t understand how Erasmus managed to not go crazy with boredom. Maybe they’d trained that out of him, too.

*

Kallias, Laurent learned from Erasmus, had been the last slave trained for Kastor. They’d never met—Kastor had died only a year into Kallias’ training—and because neither Theomedes nor Damianos had wanted him, Kallias had been gifted to Nikandros the second he was deemed ready. What that meant exactly, Laurent did not know. He supposed it had to do with Kallias’ ability to roll over on command.

Standing side by side in the middle of Laurent’s rooms, Kallias and Erasmus were as pretty as any pet Laurent had ever met in his life. They wore their chitons mid-thigh, without belts, and their sandals were the color of wet wood. Erasmus wore golden anklets, so thin they looked like thread, but Kallias had no jewelry on him that Laurent could see.

“Where’s your pin?” Laurent said, leaning forward on his chair to check he hadn’t missed it the first time. 

Erasmus’ knees bent the slightest bit before Kallias gave his fingers a squeeze. Laurent had forbidden them from kneeling, and although Erasmus looked eager to comply with every order, it was harder for him than it was for Kallias. Laurent understood—kneeling came easy after one had done it enough times.

“Master Demokritos took it away, Your Highness.”

“Under whose orders?”

Erasmus’ eyes were on Laurent’s feet. “The Exalted One said his courtship would prevent him from taking any slaves. It’d be an insult to Veretian traditions.”

There were no such traditions in Vere. Laurent did not bother pointing that out. “If that’s the case, why are you still here? Why hasn’t he sent you away?”

“Your Highness,” Kallias said, voice low, head ducked. The alive painting of submission, he made it look effortless. “Courtships only last a season in Akielos.”

Kallias had spoken quietly and respectfully, no trace of mockery or disdain in his voice, yet Laurent felt his cheeks flush at his own assumption. Of course Damianos would take his slaves back once the courtship was over. It was childishly stupid of Laurent to expect otherwise, for didn’t married kings and princes back in Vere take pleasure in pets? 

Kallias’ perfect stillness and Erasmus’ spasming knees made Laurent uneasy. He’d never spoken to slaves like this—in his own rooms, without any order or command between them, simply listening to their answers—and it wasn’t what he’d envisioned. At all.

He’d thought they’d be as jaded as pets, quicker in their replies, sharper in their wit. Kallias wasn’t dull, and neither was Erasmus, but they were quiet in an unnatural way.

Shifting in his chair, Laurent said, “You’re here to tell me about your training. In detail. If I wanted a concise explanation, I’d ask one of the handlers.” For Erasmus’ sake, he added, “You may kneel now if you wish to do so.”

They both went down to their knees, nothing between their bare legs and the cold marble tiles. Yet they didn’t even flinch.

Wanting to save the best for last—he’d squeeze whatever he could about Nikandros out of Kallias, no matter how many questions it took—Laurent turned to Erasmus first and, without another word, settled in the chair to listen.

And Erasmus did not disappoint.

*

_ His Majesty is holding Vere together _ , Berenger wrote back. Then, lines later, handwriting as neat as Laurent’s tutors’:  _ I must decline your invitation, and refrain from writing more about His Majesty’s plans. May your courtship succeed. _

After reading it twice, Laurent ripped it and let the pieces of paper fall into the water. The ocean swallowed them eagerly.

*

“Quit staring,” Laurent said, his own eyes set on the setting sun. “It’s impolite.”

Damianos took one step into the gardens. Then another. “I thought you didn’t like it here. Have you changed your mind?”

“I never said I didn’t like—”

“I know,” Damianos said. He sat next to Laurent on the stone bench, his thigh burningly hot against Laurent’s. “But you didn’t have to. Your face said enough.”

“You can hardly read books as it is. Since when are you fluent in facial expressions?”

Damianos smiled. “ _ Expressions _ .”

“And,” Laurent said dryly, “you have trouble hearing, as well. That’s what I said.”

“You didn’t roll your—”

“Expressions.”

“That’s fairly acceptable,” Damianos said. Lines appeared on his face, around his mouth, next to his eyes. A full-face smile. “Although it could be better.”

“I won’t fret over it as long as my Akielon is better than Nikandros’ Veretian.”

At the mention of Nikandros, Damianos’ smile lost some of its previous easiness. “You shouldn’t judge him too harshly. There are many things he doesn’t know.”

They weren’t talking about languages anymore, it seemed.

“Because you haven’t told him. It’s not hard to imagine what he thinks of our…” Laurent paused, hesitant. “Arrangement.”

“Does it matter to you what he thinks of it?”

“No.”

“Then why give him more than one moment’s thought?” Damianos tucked a curl behind his ear, a boyish gesture Laurent had never witnessed before. “He’s my friend, but I’m his king.”

“Kings need heirs.”

“I have an heir,” Damianos said, voice hard. 

“It’s not just Nikandros you should worry about,” Laurent said, not wanting to talk about Galen. “Makedon supports him, as you obviously know. All the kyroi do because it’s the most rational—”

“Laurent.”

“You can’t expect them not to question this.”

“A union between Akielos and Vere is nothing short of beneficial,” Damianos said easily. Laurent could picture him practicing those same words in his rooms, pacing, trying to think of what to say to Nikandros. “The treaty will be even stronger than it is now. It’s… strategic.”

“Akielos was fine before the treaty was signed, and it’d be fine without it if my brother decided to terminate it. No King before you has married—” Laurent cut himself off, flushing. He disliked that word. “There has always been a Queen in Akielos.”

“And there’ll be one again. When Galen is old enough to choose for himself.”

Laurent’s eyes found a wilted orchid, petals no longer violet but a dying lilac, wrinkled and sad-looking. Saying nothing back would have settled the issue, but maybe Laurent was worse at peace than he’d originally thought. “Denying the truth doesn’t make it a lie, Damianos.”

“Should I marry King Torgeir’s daughter then?”

Laurent frowned. “That isn’t—”

“You said kings need heirs,” Damianos said, and there was a bitterness so strong there Laurent leaned back against the ivy-covered wall, palms pressed against the cold stone of the bench to keep himself from falling. “A Queen will want a child, her country will demand it. And what happens when I can’t—”

“I wasn’t suggesting you do that.”

“I don’t  _ need  _ your suggestions.”

Laurent didn’t mean to, but he snorted out a laugh. It did not sound nearly as disdainful as he’d intended.

Damianost did not like it, tensing beside him. “This isn’t Vere, Laurent.”

“Do you think I don’t know that? As if one could forget, even for one second, that this is anything but Akielos.”

“Then perhaps you should stop trying to pretend Veretian sensibilities apply here.”

Laurent felt each word like a slap to the face. He breathed in and out, slowly, wishing for stoicism, and said, “What is that supposed to mean?”

The sun was setting, dragging the light away with it. Soon the sky would be a dotted mess of stars, something Laurent often found mesmerizing. Now, however, he wished the sun would stay right where it was, a distant spectator of their conversation.

Into the sudden quiet, Damianos said, “You have been talking to Erasmus and Kallias.”

“Am I not allowed to converse with slaves?”

“There are rumors that you aren’t simply conversing. I know Erasmus, and I know he would never rise against me. Or anyone. But my Council is worried.”

Laurent didn’t know where Damianos was going with that. He hated not knowing, and so he held onto the first hurtful thing his mind supplied. “I suppose that’s part of his charm, isn’t it? You like them pliant. It makes sense that you’d give Kallias to Nikandros.”

Nikandros, polite and stern and traditional. He’d make a slave out of any man given enough time.

It was quiet for so long in the gardens, Laurent was starting to worry Damianos had not heard him. Perhaps the wind had blown his words away, carrying them far into the sea before they could reach Damianos’ ears.

But then Damianos said, again, “This isn’t Vere.”

“You keep saying that, but what does it—”

“They’re worried,” Damianos said, not bothering to clarify who  _ they _ were, “that you’re planting the seeds of rebellion in our finest bed slaves’ spirits.”

Laurent’s body reacted on its own, muscles locking into place, tensing, cramping. His nails almost broke against the stone. He choked on all the words he wanted to say. In the end, under Damianos scrutinizing stare, he managed to pry his mouth open.

“So what if I am?”

Damianos said nothing.

“What you call training is something I wouldn’t put my worst enemies through,” Laurent said. It was a struggle to keep his voice from breaking, his fury trying to chisel away at every word. “Give up your crown for a season and let Adastrus train you. I’m sure your views on pleasure slaves wouldn’t be nearly as sweet by the time he’s through with you.”

“Laurent.”

“And you  _ know _ it’s barbaric. Why else would you dissolve your little harem with the excuse of our courtship? You know it is—”

“I knew you disliked it,” Damianos said, “and so I did what I thought would be best for you. But I’ve seen the way pets are treated in Vere. Do you honestly think that’s any better?”

“What do pets have to do with this?”

“I’m yet to see a mistreated slave. Bring them to me, granted you can find them, and then we’ll discuss which system is the most barbaric.”

Laurent let out a sharp laugh. He hoped it cut right through Damianos’ heart. “The most powerful lies are, indeed, the ones we tell ourselves. You live the life of a king and yet pretend to know what it is like to be a groveling whore.”

“In that case, you’re just as ill-informed as I am. You’ve been a prince all your life, have you not?”

The reply was heavy and acrid on Laurent’s tongue.  _ Yes _ , he pictured himself agreeing,  _ and I’ve been a whore as well. _

He stood, both warm and cold at the same time. His fingers were tingling. “Let your Council know their worries are unfounded. I approached your slaves out of boredom, nothing else.”

Damianos frowned. “Erasmus—”

“—is the one I’ve picked as my companion,” Laurent said. He hadn’t had one in years, since that young girl Mother disliked had left the palace. “Consider it another courtship gift, one I’ve chosen myself.”

Aktis awaited him by the entrance. Laurent went back to his rooms, the guard on his heels, and slammed the door as hard as he could once he’d made it inside. That was the sort of thing he’d done in Arles when he was younger, trying to explain to Auguste without words what his mood was. 

*

On the warmest day of that summer, Dion took him to the docks.

It was different, standing on the wet and damp wood instead of under it. Laurent wondered, silently, if it was different for Dion as well. Until he remembered that Dion was a fisherman and went out to sea for days on end. Dion came here regularly.

There was a net tangled in one of the posts. Laurent caught Dion staring at it, watching the wind play with it, trying to take it away from the docks and failing.

“That’s where he fell,” Dion said. “And that’s the net we used to play with. Do you remember that?”

Although the heat wasn’t really intense where they were standing, Dion’s body still felt too warm for Laurent’s comfort. Yet Laurent leaned closer, unsure of where to put his hands, of how to reach out for him in a way that wouldn’t startle him.

“Yes,” Laurent said. “I remember. He wasn’t very good at untangling himself.”

Dion’s hand brushed against his. Laurent was still gathering his courage when Dion’s fingers wrapped around his, some of them interlocking. It was as though Dion wore a small sun on the palm of his hand, the warmth so focused there Laurent felt himself sweat at the contact.

“Were you here?”

Dion was shaking his head before Laurent had completed his question. “I was on my father’s boat over there.” He pointed at a spot where cliffs met saltwater, several miles away from the docks. His hand trembled as he lowered it. “Aeneas said it was fast. He slipped and couldn’t—the current dragged him down.”

Laurent squeezed his hand. The smell of the sea was both comforting and terrifying, for it made it all too real. Timon was alive here in ways he’d never be in Arles, when Laurent had read Dion’s letter. Timon had played with that net, had swam on this shore, had held Dion’s hand. 

They sat on the edge of the docks, legs dangling, wind slamming against their ankles and calves. Laurent felt dizzy with the danger of it, but Dion did not seem to notice, too busy making sure their hands didn’t stray away from one another.

_ I had a friend _ , Laurent said inside his head.  _ He drowned, too _ . But it wasn’t the truth, and so he kept the words close to his chest, cradling them, and leaned as close as Dion allowed him. 

Would Nicaise have liked the sea?

*

Damianos’ second gift was, similarly to the first one, something Laurent had not known he wanted. 

In the book Auguste had gifted him for his last birthday, Laurent had read about courtship traditions in Akielos, stories that dated back almost four generations. According to the book, King Irenaeus and Queen Calliope had had the longest, most sumptuous courtship Akielos had ever seen, lasting sixty weeks exactly, sixty gifts exchanged between them. 

Laurent’s knowledge of Veretian courtship was borrowed, second-hand, every piece of information having been fed to him by his tutors. But it was the real details that evaded him completely, for he’d never thought to ask what his parents’ courtship had been like, what gifts they’d exchanged, what resources Kempt had asked for. 

Auguste had courted Victoire, slowly and meticulously, and Laurent had watched from the sidelines like the outsider he’d already started to become in his brother’s life. The memories of that time evaded him completely, as if scared of him. They all blurred together in his head until it was hard to remember, sometimes, what had come first: the bending of Auguste’s knee or Victoire’s execution.

The truth was Laurent had never asked Auguste the most basic questions because he’d thought, stupidly, that Auguste would always be there to answer them. And now Laurent found himself alone in a country that was both new and familiar to him. It wasn’t Akielos that had changed, Laurent knew. He’d been a child back then, playing with peasants at the beach and not having to worry about being liked. Now everywhere he looked he saw the hurtful reminders that this wasn’t Vere—he saw it in the slaves that walked the palace halls, in the looks he had to endure from Damianos’ visiting kyroi, in the strange treatment Jokaste received.

At night, before crawling into bed where nightmares were waiting for him, Laurent would sit at his desk and dip the perfectly fluffed quill into the ink, and without really knowing why he’d start writing. The first two words always came to him effortlessly, as though his hand knew no other pattern, as though that was the way Laurent had always started his letters. 

_ Dear Auguste _ .

The first letter he wrote to his brother could hardly be considered a letter. Laurent did not talk about his day, about Dion and Damianos, about anything that resembled an anecdote. Instead, his long paragraphs consisted of arguments against things Auguste had said in his own letters, things that had kept Laurent awake some nights. Once he was done, he felt the urge to burn it, but the scene of the smoke rising from note was more familiar than he could bear. He folded the letter in half once the ink had dried and stored it away between the pages of one of his books. 

The second and the third and the fourth were angry letters, Laurent’s handwriting twisting until it all became a tangled mess of tight consonants and vowels. Some of the things he wrote were true— _ you should have told me of the guilt you carried, you were selfish _ —and others were nothing but blurted out, undigested thoughts he did not truly mean— _ I will never forgive you, you did this to us _ —but Laurent wrote them all down anyway. 

His sixth letter was about Damianos. Laurent wanted to know what Auguste thought of their union, if it truly disgusted him. Laurent asked him questions he never would have dared speak out loud, questions he doubted Auguste could have answered. Laurent asked him about his wedding, about the public consummation, about the rumors he’d heard before Damianos had whisked him off to Akielos. 

_ Did you hurt her? _ Laurent wrote and then scribbled it out, fat drops of black ink ruining the parchment where the words had once been. Auguste had not hurt her. Laurent knew this.

_ They speak of you here _ , Laurent wrote in his eighth letter,  _ but they do not dare call you by your given name.  _ The merchants brought rumors with them, rumors the slaves carried with them like currency, and Laurent had spent his whole life learning the fine art of acquiring secrets. In Vere, Auguste wasn’t Auguste. There was no one left to call him that, his wife most likely not brave enough. In Akielos, he wasn’t Auguste either. He was The Cruel King.

Laurent wondered if Auguste missed it, hearing his name out loud, not attached to titles or adjectives. The way Mother had always said it.

One morning, right before autumn wilted away completely, Damianos came to see him in his rooms. They saw each other every day, sometimes for such long periods of time Laurent had to escape to the beach afterward, to keep himself from doing foolish things. They dined and walked and talked, but they were never alone in Laurent’s rooms for more than a few minutes. Damianos would simply not allow it.

But that morning was different. Damianos walked into the room without knocking, his hands behind his back like he was hiding something. It was very early, and Laurent was still in his nightclothes, brushing his hair.

“I leave for Kesus today,” Damianos said. His clothes spoke for him, an elegant chiton, unlike the one he usually wore in the palace. “There’s something I want to give you before I leave.”

Laurent put his brush down on the bed. “When will you return?”

“Tonight.” Damianos’ face was that slightly darker shade that signaled a blush. “But I had to see you first.” A pause, short and sweet. “It’s—you can be quite distracting. At times.”

Laurent thought it was supposed to be a compliment. He said nothing back.

“Erasmus told me you have been writing letters.”

“Did he?”

“On accident,” Damianos said. “He isn’t spying on you.”

“How reassuring.”

Damianos hovered by the bed, looking pained. His eyes were on the brush. After a moment of staring, he cleared his throat and said, “I hope you like these. If you don’t, feel free to toss them into the sea.”

Then he handed Laurent a box. The lid was made of wood, but the rest of the box was white and very cold. Laurent knew it wasn’t marble, but whatever rock had been made out of had a fine quality to it, just as smooth and pretty. Inside, there were at least a dozen envelopes the color of bone. A seal lay on top of them.

Laurent closed the lid. “I won’t send them.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Then why—” Laurent stopped himself. What did that matter? Stiffly, he said, “Thank you.”

Damianos picked up the brush. It looked child-sized in his hand. “May I?”

They rearranged their bodies: on the bed, Laurent’s back turned to Damianos, spilled sunlight between them. 

“You should ask one of Jokaste’s ladies to braid your hair,” Damianos said, carefully dragging the brush down. “Wearing it loose will only make things harder for you.”

Because of the heat. “Braid it,” Laurent said. “It’s been a while since you’ve practiced.”

Damianos’ fingers stuttered over Laurent’s neck. He let out a quiet laugh. “That isn’t true. I’ve been braiding my horse’s mane. Galen’s hair too, sometimes.”

“When Jokaste isn’t watching.”

Despite his explanation, Damianos started twisting Laurent’s hair into a loose plait. It’d come undone soon, Laurent knew, yet he let Damianos do as he pleased, his hands sometimes lingering for a second too long on Laurent’s shoulder, on the side of his neck, on his nape.

Laurent leaned back into the touch, which made it harder for Damianos to properly braid his hair. 

“Is Nikandros going with you?”

“No,” Damianos said. “He wanted to, but I’d rather he stayed behind to handle the merchants.”

“What merchants?”

“The ones who bring spices from Patras. They’re—” Damianos paused, thumb tickling Laurent’s ear. “Quite a handful.”

“I’m good at negotiations.”

“Are you?”

“I had enough practice in Arles. There were people willing to smuggle things from the south, but one had to be persuasive.”

“Nikandros won’t like it.”

Laurent turned around. Damianos stayed put, which meant their faces were very close, enough so that if Laurent leaned in, just slightly, he’d dishonor their courtship. 

“Prince Torveld was impressed,” Laurent said, watching Damianos carefully. He liked the way Damianos frowned with his whole face, eyebrows almost becoming one. “Perhaps Nikandros will be as well.”

Damianos’ reply was interrupted by a series of knocks on the door. It was time for him to leave.

*

There were days Laurent couldn’t face what his life had become. He’d wake up covered in sweat, his sheets and pillows drenched in it, and crawl out of bed on unstable legs. Sometimes he’d change out of his nightclothes, sometimes he wouldn’t. More often than not, he wouldn’t even bother brushing his hair, secretly liking the way his scalp felt when his fingers tangled in the knots. 

Aktis and Pallas would follow him to the stables, staying outside the doors, guarding them against an invisible enemy that never came. On those days, Laurent reasoned that they weren’t there to keep him safe from others, but to keep him from running away. 

From morning to early evening, Laurent would lie on the clean piles of hay furthest away from the doors. He liked the cool shade and the noises of horses, the wind blowing against the wood and making odd sounds. He’d doze off like that some mornings, finally away from the smothering heat that had turned his nights into a hot hell.

One morning he walked out of the stables and straight into Damianos, who was being pulled around by Galen’s demanding hand.

“There’s hay in your hair,” Damianos said. He plucked it out, fingers hot when they touched random parts of Laurent’s head. “Have you been in there all day?”

It was later than usual. Laurent never stayed in the stables past lunchtime, a part of him scared that someone would come looking for him and think him unhinged. 

“I was busy,” Laurent said, watching Galen’s insistent tugging on Damianos’ arm. “Besides, it’s not as hot in there.”

“Are your rooms not cool enough to be comfortable? I thought—”

“You smell of horse,” Galen said, nose scrunched and head tilted. 

Laurent stared at him. “Do I?” Sniffing. “You smell bad too.”

“No, I don’t.”

“I think you do.”

Galen started sniffing the air furiously. After a moment, his frown softened in relief. “Uncle.”

“Are you sure it’s me?” Damianos said. “Maybe Laurent’s right. When was the last time your mother forced you to have a bath?”

Galen ignored him. “Horses,” he said. Then, tugging on Damianos’ fingers, “Now, uncle.”

Laurent looked away. There was bile in his throat, in his mouth, and he couldn’t seem to swallow it. He prayed the child wouldn’t repeat that word a third time.

“Wait for me inside,” Damianos said. He herded Galen past Aktis and Pallas and towards the stables, and once Galen had disappeared inside he turned to Laurent once more. “Is it truly too hot for you here?”

“Does it matter?”

“There’s a summer palace outside the capital. The heat isn’t as terrible there. We could—”

“You have a kingdom to rule,” Laurent said, and sidestepped him. It was awkward to speak again, not looking at Damianos at all, but he forced himself to say the words. “Maybe after.”

“After I’m done ruling my kingdom?”

Laurent’s neck was on fire. “After we—”

“I know,” Damianos said, and there was laughter in his voice, mirth that made the day brighter. “I was only teasing you.”

It was hard to scowl, and also pointless, for his back was turned to Damianos. “Don’t,” he said, and left for the baths.

*

“Fight you,” said Galen.

Laurent and Erasmus were sitting by the tree they’d met under, looking at the men in the arena. Erasmus was discreet in his ogling, and Laurent did not care for naked strangers. They’d been enjoying the quiet when Jokaste’s son started running across the arena, slamming into Damianos’ legs.

Damianos was supervising something regarding the men’s wrestling skills. Nikandros kept showing him different stances, young man after young man trailing in to display them. Both the King and the Kyros had their clothes on.

A weird expression flickered across Damianos’ eyes when he heard Galen’s words. Laurent doubted anyone else had seen it, for it had been as quick as any lightning in a storm. But Laurent saw it.

Nikandros was looking at the sky. He’d given up trying to dissuade Damianos, who had crouched down at eye-level with his nephew already. 

They were too far away for Laurent to hear what was being said, but when Galen turned around there was a radiant smile on his face. It wasn’t hard to figure out Damianos had given in to his ridiculous request.

Laurent’s theory was confirmed when a man approached Damianos and Galen with wooden swords. Damianos’ was bigger and thus heavier than Galen’s, but it was still significantly smaller and lighter than a real sword. Damianos handled it effortlessly, playing with it while Galen was handed his own.

Erasmus let out a breathy sigh next to Laurent. 

Damianos and Galen stood in front of each other, the tips of their swords touching. It should have been comical, for Galen was so small Damianos had to lean forward like a willow, but the scene made Laurent uncomfortable.

It was over quickly. Someone whistled and both nephew and uncle started moving, but it was obvious Damianos’ movements were calculatedly slow. The sound of their wooden sticks connecting rippled through the arena, which had grown quiet by stages, all eyes on them.

Galen’s blows were awkward and easy to miss, yet Damianos stayed put every time. When the child hit him on the knee, Damianos slowly lowered himself to the ground. It was the closest to kneeling Laurent had ever seen him. 

“You’ve won,” Damianos said, half-smiling. It was bitter. “Happy?”

Galen was happy. He held his practice sword with both hands and laughed when Damianos rose to his feet, sawdust clinging to his legs. He let himself be picked up, something Laurent noticed did not happen often, and said something along the lines of  _ yielded you _ .

Laurent searched the small crowd that had gathered around the winner, but Nikandros was nowhere to be seen.

*

“You don’t like Kastor’s son,” said Laurent in Akielon.

It was one of the rare mornings the four of them were having breakfast together in the main hall. A letter from Vask had arrived halfway through the meal, and Damianos had been the first to abandon the table. Jokaste had followed him after a moment, eager to hear the news. 

That left Nikandros, who was sulking into his porridge at the prospect of being left alone with Laurent. Or, at least, Laurent supposed that was the reason for his foul mood. One never knew, with Nikandros.

Nikandros did not look up from his breakfast. “Don’t concern yourself with such gossip, Your Highness. You’re obviously ill-informed.”

Laurent watched him push the oatmeal around with his spoon. It had probably gone cold already. “Surely Jokaste is more dangerous than a small child. Shouldn’t you worry about her instead? All this misplaced disdain is not doing you any favors.”

“I serve my king,” Nikandros said. “I do as he says. If he insists on naming Prince Galen his only heir, then I—”

“Prince Galen.”

Nikandros must hear the low laughter in Laurent’s words. He did not comment on it.

Usually, Laurent would let things be. Early in the morning, the weather was nice, his mood improved even after a night of small terrors. Yet there was something about Nikandros’ expression that made him want to keep going, to push and pull until Nikandros snapped open like the clams Dion liked to pick up as he walked on the beach.

“What are you so concerned about?”

The answer Laurent wanted never came. Nikandros pushed the bowl away roughly, milky porridge sloshing around and dripping creamily to the table. He left without a glance back, as if the mere sight of Laurent made him want to burst into flames.

Laurent finished his breakfast in silence. For the first time in weeks, he felt at ease. It could be a game, he knew. Uncovering secrets.

*

Makedon left the capital as soon as the summer started to turn into autumn. He promised Damianos he’d be back before the year ended, perhaps after winter. Laurent knew why.

By now, every man in Akielos knew the King of Vere had promised to visit.

As if to fill in the spot Makedon had left behind, Aesop returned from his mysterious journey abroad. Laurent walked into the dining hall for breakfast one day to find him and Galen sharing a conversation.

Aesop looked old. The subtle changes in him made Laurent think of Father, who’d never reached old age. It was a strange comparison, but it was one Laurent couldn’t seem to shake off.

“Pears grow on trees,” Aesop was saying to a bored-looking Galen. He pointed at the fruit bowl between them. “These grow on bushes, which means their roots are—hello, Laurent.”

Laurent sat down across them and reached for the water pitcher. As he poured himself a cup, he said, “New student? Dion still can’t spell most words correctly.”

“Teaching only goes so far, child.”

“Where have you been all this time? Damianos wouldn’t say.”

“He didn’t know,” Aesop said. “One season a year is mine to spend as I wish. This year I chose Vask.”

“Vask?” Galen said, alert. There was a smudge of honey on his cheek. “Uncle went there.”

Before he could stop himself, Laurent said, “Your father went as well.”

Galen’s reaction would have been comical had Laurent not known it wasn’t exaggerated for the sake of being funny. His eyes grew large—they were already too big for his face, and Laurent had asked Damianos more than once if such features were normal—and his pudgy fingers twitched as if he wanted to touch something that wasn’t there.

Slowly, his eyes on Laurent, Aesop said, “Laurent met your father when he was a child.”

“A baby?”

“No. He was older than you but not as old as I am.”

Galen sat on his chair, hands splayed on the table. He was leaning forward as if the closer he got to Laurent the more answers he’d get out of him. “Tell me?”

Laurent shifted in his chair, awkward. He did not know why he’d said what he had, and now it all seemed foolish. He hadn’t been Kastor’s friend, had not even been his ally. In a way, it was Laurent’s fault Kastor was dead.

Trying to win some time for himself, Laurent said, “Have you ever seen paintings or sculptures of him?”

Galen nodded vigorously, curls bouncing around, not once blinking.

“I’m sure those were impressive, but he was very large.” A beat, then two. “He liked olives very much.”

“Uncle told me.”

“And he was quite…” Laurent paused, not knowing what word to use. He thought Galen would be able to tell if he was lying. In the end, he settled for, “He frowned a lot.”

Galen sat down on his chair again, looking pensive. Laurent and Aesop shared a look, but neither said anything to the child, for Laurent had barely known Kastor, and Aesop had known him too well.

Breakfast done, they left the table and started to head to the courtyard. And it was then that Galen tugged on Aesop’s chiton, hinting that the old man had to crouch to hear a secret. When he was done whispering, he let go of Aesop’s clothes.

“We’ll speak later, Laurent,” Aesop said. He was being herded away by Galen, but before disappearing into the maze of columns and archways, he said in Veretian, “Off to visit Kastor.”

*

The sixth gift was a chiton.

“You don’t have to wear it outside of your rooms,” Damianos said. Then, frowning, “Or inside. Or at all. It’s simply…”

Laurent held up the garment. It was white and unadorned. Even the belt refused to look decorative. “A gift.”

“Because it’s warm.”

“It’s summer.”

Damianos laughed. He sounded relaxed for the first time since stepping into Laurent’s rooms. “If you choose to wear it and decide you like it, I’ll have more commissioned.”

Despite all his initial protests, Laurent could acknowledge now that it was warm. It was hot and humid and suffocating. Today Laurent was wearing his thinnest long-sleeved shirt and the only pair of pants that still fit him comfortably. Today was also as hot as the day he’d been to the docks with Dion.

The choice was easy.

“What—” Damianos raised both hands, then lowered them. Then raised them again. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying it on,” Laurent said, tugging at the laces on his neck. The ones on his wrists were already loose. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

Damianos turned around so quickly Laurent stopped undressing.

“You’ve seen me without a shirt.”

“Not by choice,” Damianos said. 

Laurent could have laughed. Instead, he got all the laces undone, tugged the shirt over his head, and stood there, chiton in hand, watching Damianos’ back. 

“I’m done,” Laurent said. “You can turn around now.”

Damianos did, if only partly. The moment he caught a glimpse of Laurent’s naked stomach, he turned around again, this time more firmly than the first. The scolding that followed sounded strangled. “You’re not as amusing as you think you are.”

Laurent slipped the chiton on and then proceeded to take off his pants. With them off, his legs felt so light and cool Laurent almost thought winter had arrived. He told Damianos to turn around again, but this time Damianos hesitated.

“I understand the appeal now,” Laurent said, “of walking around half-naked.”

Damianos’ eyes were on his face. The effort it was taking him not to let them wander lower was apparent.

Laurent smoothed the fabric over his thighs, liking how cool it felt against his skin. He wouldn’t wear it outside, where everyone could see, but inside his rooms, it was almost the same as wearing a long nightshirt. Better, even, if he was being honest with himself.

“You,” Damianos said.

“I?”

Damianos cleared his throat. “Do you like it?”

Laurent didn’t know how it looked on him. There were no mirrors in his rooms, no polished metal or still waters that offered him a clear reflection of his body. All he knew is that the cotton was thin and soft, that it felt quite literally like having no clothes on. 

No self-respecting Veretian would wear this. Laurent was starting to think that was why he liked it so much.

Laurent tilted his head to the side, just enough to force Damianos to focus again. “Jord thought I wanted to marry you when I was thirteen.”

Damianos looked troubled for a moment. “Did you?”

“No,” Laurent said. He didn’t have to explain why. “Chitons were discussed though, regarding our imaginary wedding. It was—funny.”

“Funny.”

“I kept thinking of Lazar’s hairy legs. In my head, his chiton looked like a dress.”

Looking down at himself, Damianos said, “I did not know hair bothered you.”

Damianos’ legs were nothing like the glimpses Laurent had caught of Lazar’s. Thicker ankles, knees that didn’t look knobby and weren’t hairless. Laurent tried not to stare and failed.

“It doesn’t,” Laurent said, at last. “Bother me, I mean.”

“There are other colors you could try if white isn’t to your taste. In Aegina, youths wear grey.”

“Grey makes me look ghastly.”

“I don’t believe that’s possible.”

Laurent sat down on the edge of the bed, wanting to see if the chiton felt too tight around his waist. After running his fingers along the belt, Laurent looked up, ready to tell Damianos that it wouldn’t hurt to have two more like this, only to find Damianos staring very intently at his exposed legs.

“Does it disappoint you? I thought slaves had their hair—”

“I’d better leave now,” Damianos said hastily. He was having trouble meeting Laurent’s gaze. “Galen should be done with his lessons by now, and I promised I’d take him to the cliffs.”

“Oh.”

Damianos moved away from the bed with a reluctance Laurent found amusing. His hand was on the doorknob when he spoke again, more to himself than to Laurent, who was watching his back with a smile.

“Longer chitons are more fashionable in Ios.”

*

“You’ve lain with him,” Laurent said, keeping his eyes on the book.

Erasmus wasn’t as stupid as Laurent had originally thought. He didn’t ask who Laurent was talking about or pretend not to understand the question. He played with the thin cuffs on his ankles as he answered.

“I have, Your Highness.”

Laurent turned a page of his book. “Well?”

“I…”

Laurent waited, but Erasmus seemed unable to speak unprompted. Sitting like this—at Laurent’s feet, on a cushion, his head ducked—Erasmus was the embodiment of everything Laurent had struggled to avoid for years in Arles. It was unnerving to have someone so close, close enough to touch, and yet know that one outranked them. 

As the Prince, Laurent had outranked Uncle. And yet that had not kept him from kneeling.

Erasmus shifted, trying to avoid the sunlight from touching his skin. He was yet to say a word.

“Was he your first?”

It was a pointless question Laurent already knew the answer to, but it was easier than asking other things. One had to start somewhere, after all.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Was it,” Laurent started, then stopped. The letters on the page were blurring, for he was staring at them without blinking. He finished, “Pleasant?”

A short silence, enough for Laurent to hear his own heartbeat. 

“Yes, Your Highness.”

The room grew warm slowly, like a meal over the fire. Erasmus’ flushing state was to be expected—he blushed more often than not—but Laurent’s took him by surprise. He hadn’t even gotten to the important part of his questioning.

“Did it hurt?”

Erasmus was looking at him. “The first time, Your Highness?”

“Yes,” Laurent said. “And all the others, too.”

It was a stretch, to ask these things of a King’s bed slave. Auguste’s pets had always signed contracts that forbid them from speaking of their time with the king, and although Laurent had always doubted it kept them from gossiping and inflating the truth, it was true that had they been caught, the results would have been disastrous. For them.

But eventually, Erasmus answered.

“No, Your Highness. It never hurt.”

“I think,” Laurent said, closing the book, “that you’re lying to me.”

Erasmus shook his head, short curls bouncing. “Never, Your Highness. I’d never. The Exalted was—he was gentle.”

“Gentle.”

“I was taught,” Erasmus said, and now he was blushing in earnest, the tips of his ears so red it looked painful, “to breathe through it and stretch. But he was kind to me, and all the others.”

All the others. Laurent’s stomach was a few words away from rejecting the few bites of bread Laurent had eaten during breakfast. There’d been others, which came as no surprise, but for the first time, Laurent was being forced to face the materiality of it. Many others had lain in Damianos’ bed, people with faces and voices and bodies, as real as Erasmus. Perhaps most of them hadn’t even been bed slaves.

“Your Highness, may I speak?”

“You’re already speaking, Erasmus. I can hear you.”

It wasn’t a real scolding, and Erasmus knew it. He risked a small smile. “Being your companion is very pleasant, Your Highness. I enjoy it greatly, but I also enjoyed… He was a good master. Kind.”

Instead of answering, Laurent opened his book again and, leaning back on his chair, tried to find the passage he’d been reading. It was no use, speaking to a man in chains about the pleasures of running. And so Laurent did not even bother. 

*

That night Laurent dined alone in his rooms, as he usually did, and then prepared for bed. It took him a long time to choose his clothes, lying them out on the bed to see which nightshirt was the cleanest. The bath he took was utilitarian but still longer than he was used to, his usual soaking interrupted by the imperiousness of scrubbing. By the time he stepped out of the water, his toes looked like prunes and his skin felt peeled raw. He rubbed scented oil on his feet—this kind wasn’t flowery or even sweet-smelling, just fragrant enough to be noticeable—and dabbed some on his wrists, which he then pressed against the back of his ears. It was the closest he had to perfume.

The guards at Damianos’ door said nothing to him as they watched him knock. They weren’t men Laurent had seen before. And if he had, then he simply did not remember their faces, least of all their names. The thought that Auguste would have known, that he would have remembered such details, made Laurent uneasy.

“Laurent,” Damianos said as he opened the door. It was equal parts a question and a greeting.

Laurent stepped inside. “Close the door.”

The guards didn’t exchange a look, the way Lazar and Jord might have done. They stared straight ahead as if Laurent coming to see Damianos at night was a common occurrence.

The moment the door was closed, Damianos said, “Is something wrong?”

There was and there wasn’t. Laurent didn’t fret over semantics; he’d practiced for this. At night, during meals, when Erasmus was napping. He knew what to say.

Patiently: “If you want me to, I’ll take the floor this time. You have a meeting early tomorrow about the taxes in Mellos, so it’d be unwise for you to sleep—”

“Laurent,” Damianos said. “We can’t sleep together.”

“And we won’t. I’ll take the floor.”

He moved towards the bed, trying to grab a pillow, but Damianos’ fingers around his wrist stopped him. 

“You’ve slept on your own for months,” Damianos said. “Why are you here now? If something’s happened—”

“Nothing’s happened.”

“Then there’s nothing to discuss. You can’t be here.”

Laurent saw Damianos’ hesitation and latched on to it. He stopped trying to get to the bed, and instead pressed himself closer to Damianos, studying his reaction. He’d prepared to lie and deflect if Damianos insisted on asking unfortunate questions, but it all seemed too complicated now. Wouldn’t it be easier, for once, to say what he meant?

“I’d like to sleep here,” Laurent said, each word a struggle. “To see if it helps. With the… dreams.”

Damianos’ resolve was cracking. “Ask Erasmus to keep you company. I won’t take offense if you share a bed.”

A moment passed. Then another. Looking at Damianos was hard, but Laurent had never been the sort of person to do things by halves. He was here, in this room. He’d chosen this, and he was going to see it through. Whatever it took.

“I don’t want Erasmus.”

Damianos watched him for a long time. “Diocles, the royal physician, could help with those dreams. We should see him tonight.”

“I highly doubt he’ll have chalis available on such short notice.”

“Why would you—” Damianos stopped. Laurent saw the question rearrange in his mind. “Did Auguste allow that?”

_ Of course _ , Laurent could say, and lie. But it wasn’t chalis he was after, not tonight. He didn’t miss the sweet stench of it, the way it dragged him under and turned his limbs into heavy logs. Didn’t miss the lack of dreams either.

“He did at first,” Laurent said. “After a while he forbid it. Which is why I’m here.”

“Laurent, I—”

“Please.”

Damianos turned his eyes to the door, perhaps thinking of the guards and whether or not they’d gossip about this. He was holding himself so rigidly, Laurent saw the exact moment he made up his mind, Damianos’ whole body relaxing and his grip on Laurent’s wrist loosening. 

“I was about to have a bath,” Damianos said. Then, realizing how that sounded, he added, “Wait here. I’ll be back in a moment.”

Laurent watched him go.

The room looked worthy of a king. Big, impressive, tastefully decorated. It lacked sumptuosity and everything Veretian, and Laurent soon found he preferred it that way. It was, after all, less familiar.

Laurent lay very still on what he’d claimed as his side of Damianos’ bed, the sheets beneath him already dampening in certain areas where his skin was pressed flush and hot against them. Despite the lazy drafts of cool air that flowed into the room through the open windows, the room was still too warm, too lived in. Laurent held in his breath, his hands on each side of his body, wrist pressing down onto the mattress as if willing it to swallow them.

Damianos emerged from the archway that led to his private baths after a while. He was fully clothed, still in the clothes he’d worn before bathing, which made Laurent’s impossibly fast pulse quicken even more, to the point where he could feel his own heartbeat inside his head, painful and disorienting. Did Damianos expect to be undressed? Was that the sort of thing lovers did to each other?

As he approached the bed, Damianos made sure to blow out all the candles, until only the one on the table remained. Damianos looked at Laurent as if asking for permission, and Laurent said nothing, did nothing but watch as that last light was put out and the darkness spread across the room, engulfing the furniture and the two of them. 

The mattress dipped under Damianos’ weight when he sat down on it, his back to Laurent. 

“Do you want me on the floor?” Damianos said. His voice was casual as if he was offering no more than a piece of bread to a beggar. As if it really was that simple. “I could—”

“You’re a king,” Laurent found himself saying. Hearing the tremor in his own voice made him angry, but he swallowed the rage down with practiced ease. It tasted bitter. “Kings don’t sleep on the floor. We’ve shared a bed before, Damianos.”

They had, but not like this. It was different now, with the courtship, and the gifts, and the guards at the door who’d keep anyone out. Without Auguste. 

They both pretended for a while. Damianos undressed—Laurent heard the sound of his discarded sandals hitting the marble, the slide of cloth as he pulled off his chiton—and redressed into his nightshirt, all along pretending it wouldn’t be more comfortable to sleep naked. Laurent pretended he did not notice this mercy.

There was no moon tonight, Laurent realized as he tilted his head to stare out the window. His whole body was beginning to ache from holding himself so stiff.

Damianos lay down on top of the covers right next to him, his body so hot Laurent felt compelled to shift away even further. But there was nowhere to go; the bed had its limits, too.

Eventually, the heat subsided. Laurent’s skin was sticky with sweat, but he wasn’t burning up anymore. When the occasional draft of wind came, it cooled him down instead of making him feel suffocated. Wanting to make the most of this lukewarm interval, Laurent reached out first, convinced Damianos would not move on his own.

Laurent slid his hand over the mattress, damp palm wiping itself on the sheets, and found Damianos’ closed fist in the dark. A moment passed, and then Damianos opened his hand, uncurling his fingers so that Laurent could hold them easier.

Damianos rubbed his thumb over Laurent’s wrist. If he felt Laurent’s pulse under the pad of his finger, he said nothing of its speed. 

The touch made Laurent ache. It’d been too long since they’d held hands, since anyone had actually touched him, and Laurent was hungry for it. He was starved.

And what did it matter, in that instant, if he wanted it or not?

“You need water,” Damianos said, his hand on Laurent’s forehead, brushing the hair back. “Or a cold bath.”

But Laurent didn’t have a fever. He pushed himself up on his elbows and found Damianos’ face with his free hand. It was surprisingly close to his own. They were lying on their sides, facing each other. Laurent couldn’t see their bodies, but he could picture them in his head. Between them, their tangled hands. 

One deep breath later, Laurent moved. They were kissing, so softly at first it might as well have been happening inside Laurent’s head. 

Laurent’s fingers found the hinge of Damianos’ jaw, the skin coarse where his stubble was beginning to grow, and Damianos’ hand left Laurent’s face completely to tangle in his hair, blunt fingernails digging into Laurent’s nape as the kiss deepened.

Every now and then, Laurent would start to feel Damianos trying to pull away, and so Laurent would hold onto him tighter, not wanting him to speak at all. Damianos could have pushed him away had he wanted to, and the fact that he didn’t made Laurent’s stomach clench like a fist.

Eventually, when Laurent’s head was too hot to think, they separated.

“I thought we’d agreed not to do this again,” Damianos said. He sounded dazed, which Laurent discovered he liked. “Are you—”

“I want,” Laurent said, and paused. He didn’t know what he wanted. And not knowing had always ended badly for him.

Damianos’ hand left his hair and settled on the side of Laurent’s neck where his pulse was strongest. His thumb traced the outline of Laurent’s throat, a delicate line that made Laurent shudder.

“There are more gifts yet,” Damianos said softly. “And ceremonies.”

“I don’t want to be bought.”

It had been childish to say that, Laurent realized. He’d been bought in Vere, months back. Half a province, men to plow a field, access to trade routes. It didn’t bother him, for he knew that was his duty as the second son. Damianos was certainly a better choice than Torveld.

Before Damianos could answer, Laurent shifted closer. There was shame in him, swelling and growing and trying to get out, but Laurent pushed it back down. So what if he wanted this? It was his to take now. 

Damianos let Laurent kiss him. He smiled into it, but didn’t try to grab Laurent again.

Laurent let out a frustrated noise as he pulled away. “Why—”

“There’s no rush.”

“How many more gifts do I have to accept before you decide to fuck me?”

Damianos’ knuckles against his cheek felt like hot cobblestones. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what? Ask for what I want? You told me—”

“You’re trying to control everything,” Damianos said. His thumb grazed Laurent’s chin. “What’s the point of a courtship if we skip all the steps?”

Laurent pressed closer, his forehead to Damianos’ shoulder. Or what he guessed was his shoulder. It was hard to tell in the dark, and they hadn’t explored enough of each other’s bodies for Laurent to know by touch alone. 

“We’ve skipped steps.”

Damianos’ hand on his back, smoothing the creases of Laurent’s nightshirt. “We have.”

Once it became clear that Damianos would not yield, Laurent allowed his body to relax. It was hard to decide if he was disappointed or relieved, but what Laurent did know was that he was tired. The sort of tired that made his bones ache faintly, that made it hard to wonder if it was a bad idea to fall asleep half-draped over Damianos.

“Next time,” Damianos said, “I’ll take the floor.”

*

The first day of spring found Laurent in bed, bundled in wool blankets and pillows. 

A few rays of sunlight were darting into the room, warming the bed. Despite it being spring already, the air was damp and cold as if winter was refusing to let go. It had been freezing the night before—clouds black, the sea angry enough to frighten away any fishermen, icy rain falling from the sky at odd hours—but now the sun was out. Timid and lukewarm, but out.

Laurent stretched, rolling his shoulders until they hurt, pressing his feet flat to the mattress, and then he stilled, fingers moving without a clear order from his brain. There was nothing under this pillow, for Laurent had left Auguste’s letters on his desk. Watching the small rectangle of the sea he could spot from the bed, Laurent thought he didn’t really need them anymore. How many times had he read them? Twenty, thirty, forty? He knew the words by heart.

And yet he couldn’t bear the thought of throwing them away or watching the flames turn them into ash. It hurt too much. He hadn’t received any letters from Auguste in all these months, all the news he had of his brother consisted of slaves’ gossip and offhand comments from the northern kyroi. 

Perhaps Auguste wouldn’t come. Perhaps he’d seen how easy life was now without Laurent tugging on his sleeve, reminding him every second of the day of what had happened. Of what he’d lost. 

No replies had come through from Auguste regarding the courtship. Damianos’ letter had gone unanswered, and Laurent tried not to worry, for he knew how quickly bad news spread. He knew Auguste was safe, his silence another punishment to be endured by both of them. He knew, but it hurt nevertheless. 

Laurent carried a blanket with him to the window, the wind so viciously cold it made his fingers ache, and stood there, eyes switching from the sea to the road in intervals.

It was the first day of spring, and thus his excitement was foolish. Still, Laurent ate his breakfast by the window and endured the wind as best as he could, bundled in the blanket like a giant insect. 

People in the village came and went. Fishermen’s boats returned from the sea to the crowded docks. There were children at the beach.

After a while, Laurent gave up all pretense, eyes fixed on the road. Waiting.

*

Auguste did not come that day, nor the following. After the first month had gone by, Laurent stopped waiting for him by the window every morning. It was clear Auguste, who’d always liked punctuality, was not coming. 

One night Laurent sneaked an orchid from the garden into his rooms and fed it to the candle’s flame, petal by petal. It did not make him feel any better.

*

Laurent stopped reading, his hand stilling for a moment in Damianos’ hair. 

“What is it?” Damianos said. He did not lift his head off Laurent’s chest, and every word he spoke was warm against Laurent’s collarbone. “Are you tired?”

“I want to ask you something.”

Damianos did not grow tense—breathing even, hand splayed loosely on Laurent’s stomach—but he shifted so he could look up at Laurent. He blinked lazily as if he’d been just preparing to fall asleep before Laurent started talking. It had never happened before, Damianos always stayed awake long enough to leave the bed.

“Nikandros isn’t fond of your nephew.”

“That isn’t a question,” Damianos said. Then, after a moment of staring, he added, “And it’s not Galen he isn’t fond of. It’s—Nikandros thinks I coddle him.”

“Do you do it out of fear?”

Damianos let the silence stretch until it snapped. He propped himself up on his elbows, half-trapping Laurent under him. “Fear?”

“He’s Kastor’s son,” Laurent said. “Does he know how his father died?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t he mind—”

“He’s not even four,” Damianos said, frustrated. “He doesn’t understand everything yet, but I have never lied to him. I’ve answered every question he’s ever asked me about Kastor. Isn’t that enough?”

Laurent looked at him.

“I’m not afraid of a child.”

“He won’t be a child forever. You shouldn’t give in to all his commands just because you’re afraid he’ll grow up to hate you.”

Damianos turned his face away. The light of the candles made his features more defined, his nose straighter. Laurent could see what Erasmus had found pretty in that face.

“I’m raising him as my heir. There’s nothing to discuss,” Damianos said, eyes on Laurent. Softer: “I won’t have you against him, too.”

“He’s a child. I’m not against him.”

It took a moment for Damianos to lean back into a sitting position, Laurent’s body cold turning all of the sudden. They looked at each other for a while, without speaking, and when Damianos opened his mouth Laurent had already braced himself for the worst.

“It’s strange. I’ve had this conversation before, only back then the roles were reversed and I…” Damianos shook his head. “A poetic punishment.”

Drily, Laurent said, “I thought you didn’t like poetry.”

A lonely gust of wind made the flames of the candles flicker. The room changed and then settled, shadows returning to their rightful spots.

“Nikandros and I both thought your brother indulged you too much as a child. I said so to Auguste once. We were in his rooms, drinking, and he kept—”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“—insisting that he knew better. Do you think he was wrong?”

Laurent knew the right answer. He’d spent four years locked inside the palace. “I don’t want to talk about my brother with you.”

Damianos’ mouth was twisting into a faint smile. “Then I don’t want to talk about my nephew.”

They stayed like that until Damianos finally decided he’d had enough and laid his head on Laurent’s chest again. Finding the right page took Laurent some minutes—he hadn’t marked it before closing the book—but once he did it was easy to start reading out loud again. His hand found Damianos’ hair again and stayed there, playing with the curls as he spoke.

*

“We’ll need at least fifteen to make a necklace,” Dion said. He was on his knees on the sand. “You have a thin neck.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

Dion blushed. “I—”

“Your Highness,” Pallas said, and his voice startled Laurent. They had not spoken in weeks. Laurent often forgot he was being followed around. “You are to come back to the palace with us.”

Aktis stood next to Pallas. He looked excited.

“Has something happened to the king?”

“No, Your Highness.”

“Then why—”

Dion’s hand on his elbow left Laurent’s speechless. It wasn’t like him to touch Laurent this liberally, with others watching. It wasn’t like him to interrupt Laurent either. Dion’s eyes were wide enough to incite a smile from Laurent, which died down gradually once he followed Dion’s gaze with his own.

Men in silver armor and blue were riding into the city. Laurent could see them, hurrying along the path and creating white clouds around them, pale sand and dirty rising from the ground. At the head there was a herald, Laurent saw, carrying a banner so big he’d been given a harness to carry it. A grey star against a sky made of blue cloth.

*

There was a carriage, wheels big and round, the color of ash. Mother had liked the type.

Damianos’ hand on his lower back was the only thing that kept Laurent from fleeing into the palace. He suddenly wasn’t ready, all his longing turned into fear. He wanted to close his eyes, as though that would somehow prevent Auguste from looking at Laurent like he hadn’t missed him at all.

In the end, it wasn’t Auguste that came out of the carriage, but a woman dressed in the sort of garments only a Queen could afford to wear. The skirt of her dress was the color of peaches and the top, long-sleeved and tight around her neck, was pearly white. It looked completely new, as if she’d just changed clothes minutes before crossing the palace gates. Her hair was plaited, tucked behind her head, the same brown shade as dirty copper. 

Mother’s crown gleamed when the sunlight touched it.

The Akielon party, including Laurent, waited in silence for Auguste to appear and introduce who could only be his wife. But the woman closed the carriage door behind her with a delicate movement of her foot. The herald looked flushed; that was supposed to be his job.

Disappointment swelled in Laurent. He pressed closer to Damianos without thinking, his body instinctively looking for something to rest against, to keep itself standing. Auguste wasn’t coming. Auguste had sent his wife in his place, a woman that barely looked older than Laurent. 

She stood in front of the Akielon party without saying a word. She didn’t know Akielon, Laurent reasoned, for she was only the daughter of some minor southern lord. What even was her name? Had Auguste ever told him? If only Laurent had gotten to the palace in time to hear the herald announce their arrival...

Damianos was opening his mouth to formally greet her when Auguste’s horse cut him off, standing between the two parties with little grace. Still on the saddle, Auguste got the animal to be quiet, and only when the horse had stopped whining did Auguste dismount.

The last time he’d been here, Auguste had worn red. Over the four years that followed his visit to Akielos, Laurent had seen Auguste draped in crimson many times, especially within the walls of the palace in Arles. But now, a deliberate choice, Auguste had dressed in black, apparently leaving the colors to his wife. Pants, jacket, boots—they were all the same shade of coal. Only the white of his shirt and the gold of his crown broke the bleak combination

Stable boys rushed forward to take the horse away. Auguste let them, taking a few steps back to fall in line with the woman in the peach-colored dress.

Damianos welcomed them. His voice was steady, but his hand on Laurent’s back spasmed slightly. He made sure to keep his speech short, perhaps already sensing Auguste’s disinterest in the formalities.

In the end, Damianos extended a hand towards Auguste. Auguste stared at it for so long Laurent began to fear he would not take it, that he’d make a scene, that he’d prove Nikandros right.

But Auguste’s fingers closed around Damianos’, knuckles whitening a shade or two as he squeezed the hand that had been offered. He was yet to speak a word.

“You must be tired from your journey,” Damianos said. “The feast can wait until you’ve recovered. Aiden can walk you to your rooms.”

Laurent wanted to shake Auguste’s hand too. He wanted Auguste to break free of this horrible vow of silence he insisted on. He wanted everyone to leave so he could have this, as he had as a child. A hug behind closed doors with no one watching.

Aiden was waiting by the open doors, his back pressed to the white wall of the palace entrance, hands clasped in front of him. He only started moving when Auguste took his first step forward.

Everything was so silent Laurent heard every single step Auguste took, boots hitting the marble with an audible crack each time. His wife followed him without comment either, not once reaching out to have her hand held or her dress carried. Like two ghosts, they disappeared into the palace as though they had never arrived.

Slowly, the Akielons dispersed. Nikandros was the last one to leave, busy having a silent conversation with Damianos over Laurent’s head, but in the end, he too abandoned the stone steps. It did not surprise Laurent to see him frowning.

“He’s tired,” Damianos said against Laurent’s temple. “It won’t be like this for long.”

For once, Laurent did not want to argue. Part of him wanted Damianos to be right, for Auguste’s distance to be a product of the long journey he’d endured and not a conscious decision to never acknowledge Laurent again. Another part of him, although smaller, told Laurent he deserved it.

*

The seating arrangement that night was against tradition. Damianos sat in his usual spot, Laurent by his right, Nikandros by his left. Auguste and his wife were supposed to sit next to them, not across, yet Auguste had sat in front of Damianos after taking a quick look around the room. His wife, now dressed in a green dress, had followed.

Makedon and Basil, the Kyros of Dice, did not seem pleased by this choice but knew better than to comment on it out loud. They, discreetly, sat as far away from the King of Vere as the bench would allow them. If Auguste noticed, he did not draw attention to it.

Instead, Auguste seemed interested in other matters. Small ones, at that. His eyes were on Galen, who was too young to sit by himself and too old to sit on his mother. Not that Jokaste would have allowed that, Laurent thought. A wetnurse’s lap would have done the job.

Galen noticed the stares and did not seem to like them. He kept squirming as if that would somehow help him get away. 

“—fifty men,” Makedon was saying. “One could train them properly and send them on their way.”

Nikandros’ ever-present frown only deepened. “Only to have them invade your country later on. Unless you’d undertrain them on purpose, which doesn’t seem like—”

“Undertrain them,” Jokaste said. “As if soldiers need to be undertrained to be useless. Makedon’s southern faction was a disaster last winter.”

Makedon’s mouth twisted. He pointed a finger at Jokaste, who was sitting across the table from him. A fish platter neatly separated them. “And who is to blame for that? Not once in ten years have I had to train men against raiders. They’re soldiers, not low-life thieves. Against those sneaky, treacherous bastards they’d obviously lose every time.”

Auguste lifted his cup of wine for the first time since the feast had started. He was smiling into it, Laurent saw. It was small and reserved as if he did not mean for anyone else to see it. 

Jokaste let out a sigh. “That sounds to me like an excuse.”

“There’s a lot that can be learned from bastards,” Auguste’s wife said in perfect Akielon. She seemed unaffected by the looks the whole table was giving her. “Perhaps those raiders could train your men.”

Makedon’s face was very red. Laurent wanted to laugh.

“Élise,” Auguste said. It was the laziest scolding Laurent had ever heard. Even Élise seemed to think so, for she did not look afraid. 

Laurent wondered if she knew how lucky she was. She and Auguste probably spoke every single day, in the morning and at night. In bed, in public. They talked so much and so often, Laurent reasoned, that they were perfectly attuned to each other, like a set of instruments before a concert. Who’d taught her Akielon? Had Auguste sat down to learn the language as well? 

Did Auguste love her?

Laurent had heard Auguste’s voice in his head many times, especially at night as he devoured letter after letter by the candlelight. Now that he’d heard it, only a few plates away from him, Laurent wanted to hear it again and again and again. Ironic, considering all the times Laurent had prayed for Auguste to shut up.

“And how,” Makedon said in Akielon, “does one train soldiers in Vere? Like raiders? During the war the two were indistinguishable.”

“Makedon,” Damianos said. “Enough.”

Élise tilted her head, pensive. “I’ve never trained a man, but I imagine it can’t be harder than breaking a horse.”

“A—” Makedon spluttered, choking on his wine. He set the cup down hard enough that the whole table heard the contact of metal and wood. “A  _ horse _ ?”

“There’s a reason women don’t lead armies,” Nikandros said. “Even in Vere…” A small pause, which Laurent could fill in easily. Even in Vere, depraved, horrible, full of traitors. “War is for men to oversee.”

Élise offered Nikandros a bovine smile. “Of course.”

The conversation shifted to something else, flowing at times and stopping at others. Laurent only heard lost, disconnected words:  _ fish, shields, borders, cotton _ . He could also hear his own beating heart, blood rushing from one end of his body to the other, because Auguste’s eyes were finally on him.

“There’ll be a hunt tomorrow,” Damianos said. “It’s been arranged on a rush, but I trust you’ll be satisfied with the trail I’ve chosen.”

Auguste toyed with his cup, tilting it from side to side, making the wine slosh delicately inside its golden confines. His eyes left Laurent very slowly, landing on Damianos instead. Just when Laurent thought he would speak, Auguste lifted the cup to his mouth and drank from it, ignoring Damianos’ words completely.

“What will you hunt?” Élise said. “You have no forests here. I’ve seen the maps.”

Galen’s cup hit the floor with a clatter. The woman who’d been sitting by him, cutting his food and half-feeding it to him, had not been quick enough to catch it and was now kneeling on the floor trying to reach between Nikandros’ feet.

Damianos made the woman stand once the cup was in her hand. “Take him to his rooms. He should be in bed.”

“Do not,” Jokaste said. The woman paused. “I’ll do it.”

But it seemed Galen did not want to go. He rose from his seat as soon as Jokaste had started to push her chair away from the table. At some point during the feast, Galen had managed to take off his small sandals and was now barefoot on the marble tiles. His feet made smacking sounds as he half-toddled, half-ran to Damianos.

Damianos twisted in his seat, lifting the child off the ground as if he weighed nothing at all. On his lap, Galen looked like the smallest of creatures, and at that moment the resemblance between nephew and uncle was lost to Laurent. Galen was Kastor’s child only, nothing from Theomedes or Damianos on his small, round face.

“I see,” Damianos said quietly as Galen whispered furiously in his ear. The child was better than Dion had ever been at keeping an already low voice lower. “And you’ll go after that. Naturally.”

Laurent risked a glance at Nikandros and was not disappointed by the sight he encountered. Nikandros had his elbows on the table, face hidden in his hands. Laurent was certain if he opened his mouth and let the air touch his tongue, he’d be able to taste Nikandros’ misery.

“King Auguste,” Damianos said. “My nephew wishes to introduce himself.”

Auguste, who’d been watching the whole scene play out without expression, did not seem surprised by this request. He leaned back and tilted his head to the side, expectantly.

“He is Galen. Third of his name.” An awkward pause, during which Damianos subtly leaned in to let Galen whisper in his ear again. “And he’s the Prince of Akielos.”

Nikandros sunk further into himself.

Damianos’ mouth twitched at something Galen told him. The child spoke too quickly for Laurent to understand a single word that left his mouth despite their proximity. “Jokaste,” Damianos said after a while. “Take him to his rooms now.”

Galen held onto Damianos’ chiton. He was rather unprincely. 

“I’ll ask him,” Damianos said, slowly uncurling Galen’s fists from his clothes. He handed him over to Jokaste, who set him on the floor and only took his hand when Galen reached for hers. “Goodnight.”

An unenthusiastic chorus of farewells echoed around the table as mother and son left the room. Laurent did not join in, and neither did Auguste.

Damianos cleared his throat like he was preparing to say something, and then quieted down. Without really knowing why, Laurent put his hand on Damianos’ thigh under the table and squeezed. 

“He wanted to know why you were staring at him,” Damianos said.

In the short silence that followed, Élise offered Laurent her delicate profile. Laurent’s thoughts were of Victoire, and how much prettier than Élise she’d been. Did Auguste think about that, ever?

With a drawl, Auguste said, “There wasn’t a reason.”

Laurent thought of speaking up during dessert—honeyed apples and pears—but he could not find his own voice. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, either. Not with all these people watching, not with Auguste’s wife still being more of a stranger to him than Makedon.

Traditionally, the hosting king would dismiss his guests when the feast was over. Auguste either did not know this or did not care, for he pushed himself away from the table after three bites of his candied apple. 

On his feet, both hands splayed on the table, he stared at Damianos.

“I look forward to the hunt tomorrow.”

And then Auguste was gone, footsteps echoing all over the hall, his bride left behind with honey-covered fingers.

*

The next day dawned bright and cold, not unusual for spring. Laurent stayed in bed longer than necessary, awake enough to hear the herald’s trumpets and the galloping horses that meant the hunt had begun. He could have joined them but didn’t. The spill of blood for sport made him sick.

Jokaste came to him around midday. She wore a dress so different from the one Élise had worn the day before Laurent was once again reminded of the differences between their countries. All those laces and belts were to Laurent almost foreign now. 

“His mind isn’t as gone as my little birds told me,” Jokaste said. It was strange seeing her cross-legged on Laurent’s chair. “He’s well-adjusted. For a king.”

Laurent leaned back against the pillows of his bed. He’d been sitting up for some time, looking out the window. Not much could be seen from the bed, but that was what Laurent preferred. A bit of the road, some treetops, crashing waves. He didn’t want to see anything else.

“Is that what you thought of your husband?”

Jokaste’s face underwent no changes. “Certainly not. Kastor wasn’t a king.”

“I see,” Laurent said. “Madness in kings is accessory then. In everyone else, it’s just—”

“Inconvenient.”

“My brother has never been mad.” 

Kastor hadn’t been mad either, but they didn’t waste time pointing it out. They both knew it, silently, and that was enough. 

There had been times when Laurent had thought Auguste’s sanity was slipping away from him. If not his sanity, then his ability to rein in his anger, to negotiate. But then the conversation in the blue tent had happened, and Auguste had been so calm Laurent had prayed for his anger. Auguste had asked his questions and Laurent had answered them. Truthfully. That was enough for Laurent to know Auguste wasn’t gone.

And Laurent knew about madness, didn’t he?

“I spoke to the Queen,” Jokaste said.  _ Mother is dead _ , Laurent thought, and then remembered Élise existed. “She’s interesting.”

“Have you come here to gossip?”

An elegant, one-shoulder shrug. “I was curious after last night. She was definitely a surprise, what with her taste for bed slaves.”

“She’s common,” Laurent said, without thinking. But then, what did it matter if he spoke his mind? Auguste’s wife wasn’t in the room. “What have your little birds told you about her anyway? I doubt there’s anything interesting about the daughter of some minor southern lord.”

Jokaste smoothed out the front of her white dress. She was playing coy, Laurent knew. Teasing. “Not so minor,” she said. “Or else he wouldn’t have been summoned to judge your brother.”

Laurent bit his lip, then ran his tongue over the bruised, pulsating skin. He could taste no blood.

“I’ve heard all sorts of things,” Jokaste went on, eyes on Laurent’s, “and not many of them good.”

What would it be this time? Auguste had lain with other women, some of them not even noble, and left half a dozen bastard children all over Vere. Auguste had tried to kill her, failed, and now lived in constant fear of her retaliation. Auguste had not lain with her since the consummation of their marriage, instead seeking out young boys with blonde hair he looked disgustingly similar to. What, Laurent wondered, were commoners and peasants and merchants whispering about his brother nowadays?

“She’s with child,” Jokaste said very slowly like she was trying to make sure Laurent understood her. “It must be recent, given how tight her corset was last night.”

Laurent couldn’t speak. The buzzing in his ears turned into a drum, loud and angry, and the morning air around him became cold as a blizzard.

Jokaste went on talking, sometimes pausing as if she was hoping to get an answer out of Laurent, and eventually called for her ladies to walk with her to the gardens. Before making her way to the door, she stopped to touch Laurent’s shoulder, squeezing it. She said something, a murmur of words that could have been comforting or piercing or anything at all, and then was gone.

At least Laurent knew now what Auguste’s fascination with Galen was about.

*

The sound of laughter surprised Laurent, who dropped his book and was forced to watch it tumble down the front steps of the entrance. He picked it up quickly, turning it in his hands to make sure no pages had slipped out and that the spine wasn’t broken. And then he looked up to find the whole party returning, Damianos’ eyes on him even though both Nikandros and Basil were trying to get his attention.

They were all walking, tugging their horses along by their reins, and hadn’t Laurent searched for Auguste in that small crowd, he would have missed the exact moment when Makedon, flushed and laughing, brought his left hand down on Auguste’s shoulder. 

Laurent saw Auguste stiffen, then relax. He didn’t exactly smile at Makedon, but he did nod along to whatever the man was saying.

Damianos, ahead of them all, reached the steps first. He stood silently in front of Laurent, hands twitching, until Laurent took pity on him.  _ Not just pity _ , a mocking voice told him, and Laurent knew it was true as he moved forward to touch Damianos, to let him drape a heavy arm over his shoulders.

It wasn’t about pity at all.

“You should have come,” Damianos said softly against Laurent’s hair. His voice was but a whisper. “By the time we reached the eastern border, Makedon and Basil were already giving him praise.”

Laurent studied Auguste’s expression. From such a distance it was hard to tell how much of his calm was feigned. “There was wine. I can smell it on you.”

A smile Laurent heard rather than saw. “I’ll explain later. Just know your brother knows how to play people.”

“—into it,” Basil was saying to Nikandros, who looked tired and bored and ready to disappear into his rooms the moment Damianos allowed it. “It was your victory, no doubt about it, but the spear to its neck was simply—”

“—try it now,” Makedon’s voice drowned out the rest. “A few drinks while the boar is cooked. It isn’t wine, but griva—”

“He’s tried griva before,” Damianos said, fingers digging into Lauren”s shoulder. “I don’t think it was a pleasant experience for him.”

Auguste ignored him completely. And Laurent as well, by proximity. To Makedon, he said, “Of course.”

In the dining hall, Laurent stayed close to Damianos, sat down next to him at the table, let his hand be held, spoke when spoken to. And all the while he watched Damianos’ men lean towards Auguste, all faces turned in his direction.

They started with wine, which Auguste had brought with him as a gift. Laurent spotted the lie easily, knowing Auguste would never bother bringing southern wine to Akielos for Damianos to enjoy with his meals. Auguste had brought it with him for the journey.

Then they moved to griva.

Makedon pushed his cup to Auguste’s, then downed it. Auguste did the same. Once, twice. The stench of alcohol was so strong Laurent’s nose itched.

“No more than three,” Nikandros told Makedon, a hand on his arm. “There’ll be a meeting after lunch.”

Auguste delicately plucked the jug from Makedon’s hand and poured another row of drinks, the way expensive pets did during feasts. “There’s no shame in quitting now,” he said, “if you can’t hold your liquor.”

Makedon laughed at Nikandros’ souring expression. “He’s right. Living in the capital has softened you, Nikandros. Do you remember those months in Thrace when you—”

Nikandros did not let Makedon finish. He drank the cup Auguste had poured for him, then reached for the next one. 

Next to Laurent, Damianos was smiling.

*

The door opened after Laurent’s third knock. It was quiet in the hallway and every time Laurent brought his fist down to the wood the sound carried, a pounding echo that was yet to stop. 

Laurent had been so sure Élise would be the one who opened the door that he hadn’t even stopped to consider what he’d say or do or think if his brother came to him instead. And of course, it wasn’t Élise.

Auguste wasn’t wearing his bedclothes, which Laurent decided was a good sign. He leaned against the doorframe, blocking Laurent’s view, and stared.

“Will you come to the beach with me?” Laurent said in a low voice. The deserted hallway betrayed him, playing his words back at him. 

Auguste took a step back into the room, making Laurent’s stomach drop. Any moment now he’d close the door on Laurent’s face, only to crawl back into bed with his wife and tell her all about Laurent’s childish attempts at having a conversation. 

But Auguste didn’t disappear for long, only enough to grab a jacket from the nearest chair. The jacket he’d worn to dinner, purple and golden. It’d been a present from some Lord, but Laurent couldn’t remember from who. Berenger, perhaps.

Once in the hallway, Auguste closed the door firmly and started walking towards the marble stairs. Without a word, Laurent followed him.

It was colder by the ocean. Laurent was glad for his boots and long-sleeved shirt, and even more content with the fact that Auguste looked warm as well. The road hadn’t been as dark as Laurent had expected, a full silver moon showing them the way.

The sand was full of squirming, moving things. Laurent was not sure he liked it.

Auguste crouched down and grabbed one, making a small flesh prison for it using both hands. He stood again slowly, eyes on what he’d captured.

“They come out once every few months,” Laurent said. It felt good to speak carelessly in Veretian again, without worrying about his cadence and whether or not he’d be understood. “It’s—do you remember when I told you—”

“Crabs,” Auguste said. He was yet to meet Laurent’s gaze. “That’s what you called them.”

Laurent was startled into silence when Auguste grabbed his hand and held it up for the creature to walk on. It was very small, tickling legs making Laurent want to laugh. Auguste’s hand under his own was like a fire, sending heat up Laurent’s whole arm.

Tired of them, the crab walked to the edge of Laurent’s fingers and leaped, landing on its back in the sand. Auguste straightened it with the tip of his boot.

“I read your letters,” Laurent said between crashing waves.

Auguste watched the crab bury itself in the sand, leaving a dotted trail behind. “Of course you did,” he said, and his voice made Laurent shiver. “You shouldn’t have bothered. They were meant to outlive me, after all. There’s little sense in keeping them now.”

At those words, Laurent was again reminded of the difference between this Auguste and the one he’d seen for the last time in Vere. In his blue tent, taunting and betrayed. Now calm and distant like he couldn’t be bothered to hold onto his anger.

“I didn’t know what it was like for you,” Laurent said. He tried to keep the accusation from his voice, but it leaked past his lips, coating every word. “All those things you wrote about Mother and Father…”  _ About Uncle _ . Laurent blinked at the moon. “Is that what you really think?”

“Would I have written it down if it wasn’t?”

Laurent turned to him then. Auguste was already watching him, and he didn’t avert his eyes when they met Laurent’s. It was like a dream, having him this close and all to himself. Wouldn’t he have killed for this, at thirteen?

_ To do right by you, always _ .

“I wrote you letters too,” Laurent said, “but I never sent them.”

“Good.”

A crab was trying to climb Laurent’s leg. Auguste’s eyes were on it.

“Do you hate me?”

There was a long pause, and then Auguste said, “No.”

It was easier to breathe after that. Laurent’s lungs filled his entire ribcage, relief and air making them swell beyond what Laurent was used to. He could taste the salt on his tongue when he licked his lips, something he’d taken for granted after so many days spent on the beach with Dion.

Auguste tilted his chin up, the moon turning his profile the color of marble. 

If it was too soon to touch him, Laurent did not care. Propriety had never seemed so ludicrous as it did now, the two of them alone with the ocean, months that were actually years between them.

Laurent’s hands found Auguste’s forearms with ease, a practiced movement. He was certain he was digging his fingers into the skin there, painfully so, yet Auguste said nothing at all. When Laurent tugged, Auguste followed, letting his arms go pliant so Laurent could fit his body in their embrace.

Auguste smelled of the soap Damianos favored, but also sweeter, as though he’d been eating sugary pastries before Laurent had gone to fetch him and the crumbs had melted into his clothes. He put a hand on the back of Laurent’s head, his ring unfamiliarly cold and hard against Laurent’s scalp, while the other remained at his side, deathly limp.

Laurent didn’t like that he was tall enough to hook his chin over Auguste’s shoulder, didn’t want to think of all the ways this body had stretched and bent and almost snapped. Didn’t want to think of why he could have this now, when before it had been off-limits.

Auguste was as still as any statue, except for his rising and falling chest, which bumped against Laurent’s from time to time. He didn’t startle when Laurent splayed his hand on his side, palm over his scar.

Laurent was sorry. He wanted to say it out loud, to mean it, to hear Auguste say it back.

“We should go back,” Auguste said, warm breath grazing the side of Laurent’s head. “It’s cold here.”

They pulled apart and, knowing Auguste was seconds away from starting towards the palace, Laurent forced their hands together, clasping Auguste’s so tightly he turned to look at Laurent with a warning in his eyes.

Walking in silence through the beach, up to the main path, Laurent’s grip only grew tighter. He remembered, vividly, those walks he’d taken with Auguste through Damianos’ favorite caves, Auguste’s hand in his to keep Laurent from slipping and falling, Auguste’s jacket over his shoulders to keep the cold away. 

Laurent said, “Did you come all this way just to ignore me again?”

Auguste stopped walking, hand going limp in Laurent’s. This close, Laurent could see all the details he seemed to have missed before: the different style of his beard, the freckle by his right eye that only came out when he spent too long under the sun. 

“I’m not ignoring you.”

“Why is this the first conversation we’ve had since you—”

“It’s been two days,” Auguste said slowly. “I did not think you’d care either way if I talked to you or not. Haven’t you had almost a whole year to settle in?”

_ And get used to me being gone _ , Laurent heard.

“Yes, but I…”

Auguste looked at him. It wasn’t like the glances he’d taken at Laurent during feasts or the casual meeting of their eyes in the halls. Auguste looked focused, the way he did when he was trying to keep from losing a game of chess. Like a question, he said, “You want to be here.”

Laurent squeezed Auguste’s hand tighter, his brother’s knuckles crunching under the pressure. “I haven’t changed my mind.”

“That’s—good. I’d have to marry you off to Prince Torveld if you decided to return to Vere.”

It was hard to tell if that had been a joke. “Your luck is great then,” Laurent said. “You wouldn’t get half a province out of King Torgeir.”

Auguste said nothing. It seemed he’d rather be silent than compliment Damianos.

Slowly, they started walking again towards the palace. Months back, still in Vere, this was exactly what Laurent had wished for, and now that he had it there was great calm in him, but also something close to panic, bubbling under the surface of his skin.

Before they’d reached the steps, Laurent stopped again. He waited for Auguste to turn around before saying, “Is it true that you’re going to be a father?”

Auguste’s face was the same it’d been at the beach, at dinner, at these same steps days ago. He didn’t ask Laurent where the question was coming from or reprimand him for listening to rumors. And that’s how Laurent knew it was true. 

“I’ll hardly ever see them, so I doubt it will change much.”

“Them?”

“The child and Élise,” Auguste said. He spoke as though Laurent was being slow on purpose. “Granted she survives the birth, of course.”

Laurent blinked a few times. “Are you sending them away? I don’t—”

“I’m moving the capital to Barbin, unofficially at first. They’ll stay in Arles.”

“You can’t do that.”

Auguste gave him a look. “Oh?”

“You can’t have your heir raised by strangers.”

“We’re all raised by strangers,” Auguste said. “Mother did not even feed you herself after that first month. Father wasn’t—” He stopped. Laurent wished he hadn’t, for they never spoke of their parents, and this was the most Auguste had shared about Laurent’s childhood. “Why is this any different? Arles is safe now and I have things that require my full attention in the south.”

Laurent shuddered to think what it had taken for Arles to be deemed safe in Auguste’s mind. Was there anyone left at the palace? Had Auguste’s court been massacred?

“What if it’s a boy?” Laurent said. 

“What then?”

“He’ll be your heir. How will he learn to rule if you’re half a country away?”

Auguste laughed, a quiet sound that rippled through the night. “Laurent,” he said, softly, like a chiding, like a joke. “What would I teach him?”

Laurent did not know what to answer. He’d never been included in Auguste’s lessons, had never known what it was that Auguste and Father discussed so intently behind closed doors. He suddenly felt the very real lightness of his position: a second son twelve years too young.

They didn’t speak again. Their feet did all the talking, each step a hundred times louder than usual, and when they’d reached the top of the stairs, Laurent let go of Auguste’s hand without being asked to.

Auguste pushed the hair back from Laurent’s face in a quick movement, which Laurent thought was the prelude to another confession. Or an embrace. But when he was done, Auguste stepped back.

Once Auguste had disappeared into his rooms, Laurent turned left, the hall changing in color and decoration. He walked and walked, every single step widening the distance between him and his rooms.

He ignored the guards by Damianos’ door. They ignored him back.

Damianos opened the door after the second knock. His hair was a mess, half of it completely dry while the rest of his curls dripped down the front of his shirt. He looked angry until he realized who was standing in front of him.

Neither said anything. Damianos swung the door open wider and let Laurent step inside. 

Like they’d done that first night Laurent came to see him after dinner, they both went their separate ways at first. Damianos disappeared into the baths, carrying two towels with him, and Laurent sat on the bed and removed his sand-covered shoes.

“Tell me about the hunt,” he said when Damianos joined him on top of the covers. Even though he felt Damianos’ eyes on him, Laurent kept his on the ceiling.

Damianos tugged at Laurent’s fingers, playing with them. “It was very quiet at first, but Basil started asking Auguste questions after a while, mostly about Veretian affairs. Makedon joined in to ask if the stories he’d heard about a growing Veretian army were true.”

“Were they?”

“Auguste deflected. He mentioned something in passing, about young men needing a purpose. It’s—hard to explain.”

Laurent let out a hum. 

“One thing led to another, and Makedon seemed charmed by the time we’d caught the boar.”

“Let me guess,” Laurent said wryly. “Did Auguste offer to help him get rid of the raiders?”

“That, among other things. They spoke of wards for a while, then switched to sailing. Nikandros seemed interested in that.” Damianos drew circles, big and small, on Laurent’s arm. “I think your brother wants to cross the sea.”

“I think my brother hates Vere.”

Damianos laughed at that. To Laurent, it sounded understanding.

*

Laurent slipped into Auguste’s rooms during breakfast. The barrette was hard to fit into the lock, but Laurent managed despite his clammy, shaking hands. 

He kept his eyes on the floor, not wanting to see her clothes or the unmade bed, and left the stack of letters on the desk.

*

The water withdrew, slowly, as if hungry for another taste of shore. Laurent dug his toes deeper into the damp sand just as Dion started taking off his sandals.

“We should swim today.”

Laurent raised an eyebrow at him. “It’s not summer.”

“It’s not cold either,” Dion said. He offered Laurent his hand, palm facing the sun. “If you roll up the cuffs of your—”

“I’d rather not.”

Laughter interrupted Dion’s next comment. Makedon’s, most likely. Laurent tilted his face towards the sound and found that he’d been right: Makedon was with Nikandros, both flushed from the sun and the wine, talking to a small party of men. The Kyros of Sicyon was among them.

To Laurent’s right, Jokaste and Élise were walking the shore, arm in arm, the almost see-through skirts of their dresses floating behind them and revealing pale ankles. Jokaste’s hair was in braids, and so was Élise’s. Laurent wondered what they could possibly be discussing.

“You’ll turn red like a lobster if you stay there,” Dion said. He frowned a little at his own words. “Cooked lobster, I mean.”

“Maybe you’ve been spending too much time with your brother if you rely on such corrections.”

Dion didn’t flush or apologize or step back. He offered his hand to Laurent again. “We’ll only soak our feet. And maybe our ankles.”

It was hot under the sun, as it always was in Ios. Laurent’s scalp was starting to itch, which was a bad sign, something Laurent had learned the hard way not to ignore. 

He took Dion’s hand, and Dion beamed at his own small victory. The first bite of cold water hurt Laurent’s toes, yet Dion paid his complaints no mind, steadily advancing into the sea. When Laurent became a dead weight, Dion finally stopped.

“Fine. You can stay here and watch me swim.”

The water was up to Laurent’s knees. His pants were sticking to his skin, growing heavier by the second, and every time a breeze came Laurent shivered against it.

Dion disappeared into the blue mass. He did not resurface.

Laurent was about to turn around and ask for help when something grabbed him by the ankle and pulled. Without grace, Laurent fell forward just before a wave broke over his head, forcing saltwater down his throat.

Dion’s grinning face welcomed him to the surface.

“You—” Laurent started, then stopped in order to cough. His hair was like a thick, wet curtain clinging to his face, and it was a hassle to push it away from his eyes. “It’s not—funny.”

Dion laughed harder at the splash of water Laurent kicked in his direction. He didn’t try to push Laurent under the water again, but he did splash him back. The water, so cold and uninviting as it had seemed to Laurent standing on the shore, was now pleasantly warm.

“Race you,” Dion said, already on his feet and struggling against the current that wanted him to stay there forever. 

Laurent’s clothes kept trying to drag him down, but he finally found his balance and stood, the waves crashing against his hips. Dion was several steps ahead, winning the race, and looking at them on the dry sand were Damianos and Auguste.

They stood at a distance from each other, but Laurent could see Damianos’ mouth moving. He could see Auguste’s careful nods.

A splash of water hit Laurent on the face.

“Come on,” Dion said, ready to splash him again if he didn’t move.

With a burning throat and a fluttering heart, Laurent followed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mentions and discussions of slavery (not graphic), mentions of past sexual abuse, mentions of characters' deaths, unhealthy coping mechanisms, nightmares. I don't think this epilogue needs a lot of warnings but just to be sure I decided to include those. If you feel like anything is missing, let me know.
> 
> Hello dearies! It's been a long time, but I'm finally back from my self-imposed exile. I wish I could thank everyone that has ever talked to me about this story, but there simply wouldn't be enough characters to name you all. So, just know that if you ever left me a comment, sent me an ask, shared the link to my story with others... I am forever grateful that we connected through this fic. Even if we never interacted and you've been a silent reader all along, thank you! I know this story isn't what many of you expected when you first started reading—it certainly wasn't what I expected when I started writing it lol—but you've stuck with me through thick and thin. Thank you for giving me your time!
> 
> Here are three very important links that I hope you'll be interested in.
> 
> [Sophia is translating this fic to Russian! Check it out!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27617990)
> 
> [I wrote a prequel to this fic.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27829687) It's only around 5k words and shouldn't take long to read, so make sure you check it out if you're interested in that. If not, then don't worry because it doesn't contradict anything about WTSIOA. 
> 
> [ Here's the poem that inspired this fic.](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/28/21/7e/28217ec7f13e2a28460630c5b8d70dc3.png)
> 
> This story will be edited at some point. There are a lot of things I wish I had written differently, but I think I need to take some distance from it to be objective about what I'd like to keep and what I'd like to edit out. Thank you for putting up with my typos, grammar mistakes, plotholes, and delusions. It's been a wild ride.
> 
> Stay safe <3 Until we meet again!


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